VIDEO sloppy crown Seamaster 168.023 cal 751

Hi all

This is my first post here. I received this beautiful minty chronometer Seamaster today, cal. 751 dated 1970. I've been looking for this exact watch and dial for a while on international sites, but found it "locally" in my country at an incredible price! It really looks like new, with only a few superficial scratches. There's also a tiny piece of lume stuck to the inside of the glass. The crown is original as far as I can tell.

I have only had it for 6 hours in writing, but it hasn't deviated one bit yet (time will tell). The timegrapher photo is after fully wound and running on the table for about 5 hours, so it looks very promising (bought the timegrapher in anticipation). The watch was serviced 3 years ago where the crystal and gaskets were replaced according to the included documents.

My only concern is that there's a bit of horizontal/vertical play in the crown, meaning not in/out. The quick-set adjust works perfectly however. Should the crown feel completely snug, or is it normal to be a bit sloppy? The gaskets are 3 years old, replaced by a reputable dealer. I've only had a mechanical watch briefly many years ago, so I wouldn't know what to expect. Any info much appreciated.

Made a short video of the sloppy crown. It is 2x zoomed so it looks a bit worse than it is. Should I be worried about water intruding even if the gasket is 3 years old? Talking about washing my hands or occasional rain.

It it's not normal, is it indicative of a bad crown, or other problems with the stem etc? I think the only available crown for this case has a bad fit making adjustment pretty difficult, so I'm hoping it' not the usual suspect regarding sloppiness.

Was not able to add video via media, hopefully this works
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tTss9BjXxPU

I really wish people would stop tasting their watches 😲. In all seriousness, great looking watch, hope you get the problem resolved.

When you say gaskets replaced, does it include the crown gasket as well, because that is a more specialised/uncommon operation

With the crown o-rings, I have 2 options, I generally pick the snugger one

But from the looks of it, I think just the caseback o-ring was changed

Thanks for the input guys. I’ll definitely hand it over to an Omega specialist before I start wearing it then. The service card from 2021 has a standard written ticked box for “gaskets replaced”, but it could very well only be the caseback o-ring. Hopefully it’s as simple as that.

Pleased to report that after 24h it hasn’t deviated even half a second!

A new old stock crown could also be available from mikeswatchparts in Canada, they still have good o-rings in them