Thoughts on this DeVille?

Hello forum members

Can you help a new member/recent lurker with a potential purchase? I've been trying to accumulate enough knowledge to buy a watch as a gift. Which means I now understand that I know pretty much nothing.

I've found something nice. It checks off almost all my criteria - date function, automatic, 500 series caliber, Seamaster or Constellation, stylish, not horribly modified and in nice enough shape to be a gift to an Omega fan.

Better yet, it's being sold by an OF member. He suggested that I post photos and ask for comments. So here goes.

Case/Caliber
Collection - Seamaster Deville
Case - 165.020
Caliber - 550 caliber.

That case and caliber combination doesn't show up on omegawatches.com/vintage-watches but I've seen the combination elsewhere for a 1965 watch and the cal comes up for an automatic DeVille on Mondodec's caliber listing. So that seems to check out.

Serial number - I don't know
He indicated the case has to be opened by a watchmaker; the watch is thin so I guess it might be one of those one-piece cases I've read about in some Devilles, maybe all Devilles have them.

Condition - well, wow, look at it. Works for me. Back is maybe a little worn but hippocampus seems sharp.

Strap - Sigh. Less than ideal (leather is fine but maybe not this leather). But not a big deal. I've seen this strap elsewhere though, maybe it is original although 50 yrs later that seems unlikely.

Original?
He says all original, not redialed or any other alterations.

Looks not very polished (angles seem sharp and being stainless helps I guess). I can't see any of the redial indicators that I've learned (font, pen thickness, minute/second hands hit the minute marks, second S in Swiss lines up with 6 o'clock). Crystal and crown have Omega symbols and it's a typical Seamaster crown.

Movement
Very unfortunately he doesn't have photos and can't open the case. So I don't know 17 vs 24 jewels (conceptually that seems significant but perhaps not practically, I'm not sure) and I can't verify the caliber or look for things like copper plating stripped away from the brass by rotor rubbing or a mismatched bridge or lousy case clamp etc etc. But then, the OF member says all original and has good reviews and he seems extremely trustworthy. To the point where he advised me that if I could wait, he would take it in for servicing before selling, to find out if it needs any significant work.

But I would really rather not wait since I've been looking for a couple of months and trying to find something for a birthday that comes up next weekend (the seller is local to me). Yes buying emotionally is dumb, but it's someone else's emotions and he's on his own in isolation, so small things easily become larger things and I think the timing would mean something to him. Yes I should have started six months ago (some OF members would say 6 years ago I think), but who knew I would have to learn a profession to choose a watch, or learn that there are predator sellers?!

Price
$1000 US. Plus what it will cost for servicing. That's a lot of cash for me, but it seems comparable to others I've seen in this type of condition. At least, in my extremely limited experience as a newbie. It's a gift, not an investment, but I'm trying to be cautious (despite the admittedly ill-advised move of considering buying without servicing...).

Thanks for being patient to read my long description (or at least to skip to the end). Any thoughts would be more than appreciated!

Are you kidding, my post was up for like 45 seconds! Thanks, I appreciate that. The seller probably will also! 😉 Thank you.

Thanks, that is reassuring. I hadn't heard about sigma dials (or noticed sigmas instead of a T or hyphen) and just read a brief article on them. That's interesting. That is one nice watch. The onyx is perfect too.

Haha thank you, that's very kind. But no, this is not how it should be done. I should have got a minimum wage job, then worked the job instead of putting in the number of hours I spent on forums and learning, and I could have bought a moon watch! Although he would prefer the smaller, vintage watch anyway, so I guess it will work out. And I get to walk away with a curse - an interest in vintage watches that I didn't have when I arrived. 😉 Thanks also for the comments on cost. I rather suspected that after seeing some models on Chrono24, although there was always something a little wrong with the better priced ones. You folks have been very reassuring, that is a great help to someone uncertain about appropriate pricing and condition.

Thanks - I will check that out. It is unfamiliar to me. This one is for my father, who once had an Omega, now missing. I've noticed Omegas for women are much, much less than Omegas for men. I suspect that has nothing to do with construction and build quality and everything to do with demand. I will have to sign off for tonight, It is now almost 4am in my part of the world. Once again, thanks for the advice and the effort you made to comment and help!

+1.
Also, crosshair is nice, you don't see them too often with those.
For the record: It is not a 165.020, those are without date. It's probably a 166.020 with a 562 or 565 movement (560 or 563 respectively for 17J US models).

Aprax - thanks - you're right, I looked briefly at a few 165.020 cases to confirm that they matched a cal 550 and completely missed the fact that they don't have date wheels. Also none of those case models had cross-hairs. The seller also agrees. I guess that is the disadvantage of those sealed cases, not too easy to inspect and I will only be able to get more information about the movement when it goes in for servicing. Meanwhile the seller is wearing it to see that it keeps time and the date wheel turns; given the good exterior condition, I thought that if it also keeps good time, the risk of interior issues is probably much lower. Thanks again for your insight. You must have some excellent references to have come up with that information.

What a coup your De Ville was. Nice crown on your De Ville.

Very nice - good job!

I paid about the same for my over-polished fully-serviced gold-capped birth-year 1962 De Ville auto-date several years ago. Mine is 34.5mm and has the 562 movement, and I suspect yours may also (or it's the 563 if after 1965?)



I just got back from service on Saturday in order to give to my son this coming weekend. He graduates from college this week, and he won't have to get a service done for another 5 years, when he has a stable job hopefully. It ran an average of +1.3 sec/day on the winder over the 4 days since it was serviced (he's also getting a freshly serviced 1998 Hesalite sandwich Moonwatch, model 3572.50, which is from his birth year).


Pic from today.

EDIT - I found the PayPal receipt from 6/30/14 and my De Ville apparently was only $600!

That is a nice example and I do like the shape of the indices and the cross hair dial. The condition looks good all around. I don't now about prices, the first Seamaster deVille I bought was in 1989 for GBP125 and the second in 2003-ish for USD175....in other words don't expect a huge increase in value.

Thanks - that is the watch alright, except the manual wind version. I believe now that the case number on the one I'm looking at is 14910. I think the crowns on the two watches look slightly different - yours has a higher pitch (more grooves), perhaps that's the way it is for manual vs automatic, I'm too new at this to know.

Thanks - you've got it right, I understand the movement is 562 not 550 and that it dates to 1962. Those are nice watches that you have. Your son is fortunate. A little irony there, you're giving watches to your 22 year old son, while I'm giving a watch to my father to replace the watch his parents gave him when he was 22.

Also, thanks for the accuracy information, that's useful to me, I wasn't sure quite what sort of accuracy to expect from an automatic, never having owned one before (I have a clock on the wall that I paid $10 for at Ikea and a broken pocket watch, this whole precise time thing is new for me). Sounds like the Omega value appreciation happened largely in the past few years and I imagine that will depend on the health of the economy in the years to come. But in my case it's a gift, I'm not really trying to make money. THanks again for the input!

Oops I blended a reply to you with one intended for the previous poster; I wanted to reply that it seems to me like the Omega value appreciation happened largely in the past few years and I imagine that will depend on the health of the economy in the years to come. But in my case it's a gift, I'm not really trying to make money. I have to admit that personally, I'm a sucker for the cross hairs, I think that adds a lot to the appearance, even if it has no practical benefit.

That might be spotting on the dial or it might simply be dust on the crystal. I think it's dust as you can also see it on the hands and the applied name and logo.

IMO the Seamaster Deville is an underappreciated line. It's possible as @ConElPueblo says that you might find one as good for less money, but it would take a lot of hard work. Good examples seem to be quite scarce (at least in the UK, which is the only place I look) - I see considerably more Constellations, which command much higher prices.

I don't think you could go wrong with this one as a gift. And if the seller knows it's a 550 movement, which is quite likely in the US, then it's 17J. I'm no watchmaker but everyone on here seems to think the quality of those movements is excellent, so I wouldn't worry about that.