Vintage Seamaster 600

X350 XJR

Welcome, great family piece.

As already noted, this should clean up nicely with minimal effort.

If you are speaking about part exchange as in part trade on another watch I would hope the connection to your father would be reason enough to hold onto this.

masteroftime

Did he buy it new in 1967? Curiously, it seems to have the engraving for the Afghan Air Force on the back. Rare piece.

Here is another example:

I concur with others. All it needs is a service and they shouldn’t touch the case. The dial looks nice and a crystal polish should really bring it out.

JwRosenthal

Looks very nice, and if the watchmaker did polish it, they did it with a delicate touch- which is what we would hope for. You don’t want it coming back looking melted butter.

JwRosenthal

It’s really shame when it happens as you can’t put the material back on. Some of the early 70’s Omegas had multiple case finishes, sunburst brushed on top, horizontal brushing on the sides and sharp crisp highly polished bevels. These finishes catch the sunlight and sparkle. Once you hit those with a polishing wheel- all those crisp edges are gone, brushing softened and dulled- you lose the whole point of watch design.

RevZMan123

Looks great!

JwRosenthal

It may have been polished to get scratches out if it had been serviced earlier in its life. If it had a brushed finish, it could have been re-brushed. Some engravings weren’t as deep as others but if they are very faint- most likely some of the material has been taken down.
Not until the last couple decades did watch owners really pay attention to this. It was SOP for a watchmaker to refinish a case during service to make a watch look “like new”- most customers expected that. Some would even repaint the dial if there was moisture damage and many times the customer didn’t consent to it, and possibly didn’t even notice or were pleased with the fresh looking appearance. We regularly see dials with incorrect fonts, text placement, wonky minute track placement and sometimes even misspellings! None of this was done in malice or in an attempt to deceive- the trade and customer’s expectations were just different then.

Many older watch makers still don’t consider the job done unless they have refinished the case- even when you tell them not to, they don’t understand why you wouldn’t want it polished to look shiny.

It took me several failed attempts to impress upon my watchmaker to do NOTHING to the case other than scrub it with soap and water- he finally got it. But he’s told me that it’s expected by the jewelers he does spec work for to make every watch he services for them look like new.