• Hi, I recently purchased an Omega De Ville from a market, took it home, wound it up and went to bed. The next morning I had noticed it had gained over an hour of time, so I wound it up again and went to work. It is still doing the same thing; roughly 5 minutes per hour.
• Shall I wait a while for it to get into a rythem? As I'm sure it hadn't been wound up for quite some time before I purchased it. Or does it need a repair? If so, any idea on cost?
• I have researched what model the watch maybe and the closest I can find is a 1969 De Ville 166.033 but it does look slightly older than this model; the box around the date on mine is also square.
• can anyone tell me if mine is the 166.033 or just a very similar one; maybe a year older or so. I have tried but can't find anything!

 

It most likely needs to have a full service, so you need to find a watchmaker and have them take a look at it for you. cost will vary depending on your location and what the watchmaker wants to charge.

Cheers, Al

 

Thanks Al, guess that seems abought right! I'm looking at about 500 euros here in Paris, which seems a lot. Not sure if the watch is even worth that amount.

 

500 euro sounds VERY expensive for a service on that watch, but i'm in the states so i'll let our European members chime in. I would think more along the lines for 150 or 200 euro (plus parts)...

 

Thank you guys. Yes that was Omega's price.

 

500 euro seems expensive. One thing you'll find is that Omega charges a lot more to service a watch than your independent watchmaker. Plus if you're buying vintage watches, Omega will replace parts that you may not want to be replaced like the dial for example. There are some good threads here on that topic to search for and read up on.

 

Okay, thank you for your advice guys. I guess it's only worth going to Omega if you have a watch that is worth a few thousand. I will follow some threads on here.
New to Omega collecting but love it already; beautify watches.

 

It doesn't matter how much your watch is worth. Omega will charge more than an independent watchmaker and they will replace parts to make the watch new again which destroys the value for vintage collectors. I have a vintage Omega that's worth more than $3,000, and Omega quoted me almost $1,000 for a service plus another $160 to change the dial. I of course chose to take my watch elsewhere. They are lovely people, I have never had a bad experience going into one of their boutiques. They just don't know how to handle vintage watches.

Here's a current thread on the topic.

http://omegaforums.net/threads/old-speedmaster.18267/#post-197153

 

Thank you!

 

You're welcome.

Another thing to think about. People don't necessarily work with watchmakers local to them. If you can find a good watchmaker that's close to you, that's fantastic. However it's not unusual to mail your watch to a good watchmaker, sometimes to other countries.

 

Will scout around; thanks again!