Re- buying a vintage watch that you lost years ago? Odd dilemma.

Bit of a strange one this, 25 years ago I came to London to start my career as a photographer, I began as a freelance assistant and then started to get jobs of my own, the first proper job was to shoot a book cover, I was paid £500 and spent £110 pounds in the little yellow watch shop in clerkenwell on a nice Omega, it had an interesting dial with silvered Arabic numerals that were flat on the dial, this watch was effectively a milestone watch for me. 10 years later it was stolen in a house burglary.

I didn’t wear a watch for over ten years after it was stolen, I didn’t want a new watch, I wanted my old Omega back. Then I started working in the watch world which led me to this forum and a nice IWC I wear every day.

Then browsing on Etsy I found this:
https://etsy.me/2JwqtF7

This is the first time I have seen a watch that is the exact same model with the silvered flat numerals, this looks like it has a new crown that is too fat for the watch. Thing is I haven’t hit the buy button! I have no idea if I’m going to have the same attachment to it and I’m right in the middle of paying for bathroom/kitchen and to be fair not looking to spend unnecessarily.

Anyone else replaced a vintage piece with something similar but regretted it afterwards? I guess it’s a bit like having a family heirloom that gets stolen, even if you find a replacement of same age/style it’s not the same is it?

It does look very IWC-ish, so your replacement makes perfect sense to me.

I guess the question you need to ask yourself is, will you be gutted if this one sells and not to you? You've finally found the same model after all these years, but your hesitation to buy suggests, to me, that you don't miss that model of watch, just your very own one of that watch.

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Originally Posted by hughtrimble

It does look very IWC-ish, so your replacement makes perfect sense to me.

I guess the question you need to ask yourself is, will you be gutted if this one sells and not to you? You've finally found the same model after all these years, but your hesitation to buy suggests, to me, that you don't miss that model of watch, just your very own one of that watch.

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I think it’s more a case of when will I wear it? It’s a dress/weekend watch mostly, I’m unlikely to wear it every day.
The watch is in Lithuania, if it was in a shop and I put it on my wrist I would probably know in an isnstant if I was going to buy it.

Buy it....try it....if you decide not to keep it it will be easy to sell on.

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Originally Posted by village

Buy it....try it....if you decide not to keep it it will be easy to sell on.

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You beat me to it!

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Originally Posted by MrSmith

I think it’s more a case of when will I wear it? It’s a dress/weekend watch mostly, I’m unlikely to wear it every day.
The watch is in Lithuania, if it was in a shop and I put it on my wrist I would probably know in an isnstant if I was going to buy it.

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Hmm I'm seeing it ships from Slovenia - is the seller claiming that watch is in multiple places? Potentially alarm bells if so, unless they have multiple outlets that they can transfer between.

Sorry, got my geography wrong :eagerness: it’s in Slovenia.

I think I’m going to ponder over the weekend but I noticed he drops the price after a watch is listed for a while so I might snap it up.

I do have a yobokies Seiko 5 and a 70’s Tissot seastar sat in a drawer that will probably pay for half the Omega.

Yes, I bought the twin of this as my first proper watch, only to have it dissappear during a messy divorce, I've got about 8 watches currently but check ebay across Europe every week or so to try to buy another. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...99a0b6bc1f.jpg

OP do not think this will be easy to shift, it may not be,
Such an obvious re-dial is not an easy sell.
It is a 1944 movement with a 1970s Omega branding on the dial, so look for a better example
Dave

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Originally Posted by sweets

OP do not think this will be easy to shift, it may not be,
Such an obvious re-dial is not an easy sell.
It is a 1944 movement with a 1970s Omega branding on the dial, so look for a better example
Dave

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Is it a redial? If so it exactly matches my watch, the same sub dial, same flat silvered numerals, I cant believe it could be the same watch (mine was stolen in London) mine had a nick in the case on the left hand side but there is no pic of that area.

I’m not an omega expert. Maybe somebody did a load of redials in the 90’s and this is one of them as was mine?

I thought it was a redial since there is no Swiss Made on the dial. It looks too clean for a 70 year old dial. Most that age have some discoloration and age showing.

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Originally Posted by MrSmith

Is it a redial? If so it exactly matches my watch, the same sub dial, same flat silvered numerals, I cant believe it could be the same watch (mine was stolen in London) mine had a nick in the case on the left hand side but there is no pic of that area.

I’m not an omega expert. Maybe somebody did a load of redials in the 90’s and this is one of them as was mine?

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The one on Etsy is a redial - no doubt

This is the only comparable photo on the Omega watches own database, from a 1943 watch, one year prior to yours
https://www.omegawatches.com/media/c...ge-MI-2318.jpg
It uses the same case, and shows what the original crown probably looked like.
Note the design of the Omega and the Omega script. This is what they looked like back then. The one on Etsy is a much larger, taller font that they used in the 1970s, once they had discarded the applied Omega. The one on Etsy also has a much more rounded Omega itself, also from the 70s, whereas this is narrower, and looks to be drawn with an itallic nib.
I have no doubt it is a redial.
Dave

ps - the same seller actually has one of the above for sale, by chance. Here. Look what an original dial should look like

100% a redial... just for comparison, here is my 1944/45 (10.4m serial) with original dial & hands, inc. expected (but not mandatory) dial degradation.

Also, it's not a 30SC, its the 17 jewel version of the 30T2 (sub second), known within Omega as the cal. 280 (mine is the 15 jewel version, the 260).

https://s20.postimg.cc/w5e87zm6l/Wat..._003_Large.jpg

Thanks for the info chaps:eagerness:
As much as I liked the watch when I bought it all those years ago I think I’ll pass on this one as it’s a redial and in the future when I have funds buy something else that takes my fancy that’s original.

Hate the term ‘redial’, the dial is refinished and to the purists that reduces the desirability. Depends what you’re looking for, if you want a watch to be smart and wearable a refinished dial’s fine, if you orefer to be anal about originality it isn’t.

Personally, it doesn’t appeal to me.

Paul

So this is what it should look like:

https://vintagecaliber.com/products/...ilver-numerals

Now I know the Calibre reference I now know what to look out for when I’m ready to buy another watch. It won’t be like the watch that was stolen but hopefully something better.

Thanks again for all the input.

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Originally Posted by walkerwek1958

Hate the term ‘redial’, the dial is refinished and to the purists that reduces the desirability. Depends what you’re looking for, if you want a watch to be smart and wearable a refinished dial’s fine, if you orefer to be anal about originality it isn’t.

Personally, it doesn’t appeal to me.

Paul

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There is no need to bridle at the term redial. It is a redial, simple and plain. All visible parts of the original dial have gone.
Refinished (your preferred term) is a more nuanced term, which hints that the dial might have been repaired, rather than wiped clean and totally repainted from scratch.
For me, redial is more accurate, and refinished is the more misleading term.
TBH, it is much easier to bridle at the term "being anal" about it, because that is a much more perjorative term than "redial" is.


WRT Redials in general.......

For me, it is clear that the best examples of old watches survive their entire life intact, with no damage.
Dials are particularly susceptible to damage, and are also clearly visible on the watch (often unlike the movement).
So the most desirable examples of watches have all of their original parts, whole and intact. This includes the dial.
That is just normal.

Now, not every watch survives this well, and may show damage.
And there will be examples all the way along the scale from having a few age spots, to totally knackered by water ingress, storage without a crystal, whatever.
Some of these perhaps should be left as is (slightly imperfect), but some definitely need work, because one cannot simply scrap every watch that is damaged.
So that may include a redial. And I have no problem with this whatsoever. I have had dials done for some of my own watches before now

But

Redials are often (like this one) not done accurately, using incorrect details, wrong fonts, missing details, incorrect minute indices etc.
This one has all of those.
The wrong Omega character, the wrong Omega Script, the wrong size and style of minute index, a lack of minute track, no Swiss Made.
Even the main numeral font, which is accurate, totally lacks the black outline to the silver numerals.
And that is just lazy and wrong.

So the value of this one is seriously impaired by its redial.
Not because it si a redial, but because it is a bad redial
Accurately done, to the original design, it could very well be as valuable as a reasonable original one.

But a perfect original one remains king, becaue it is rare for watches to last 70 plus years in that state. And the market loves rarity.

Dave

Have to agree with Sweets on this one. It most certainly is a redial, and not refinished / retouched, which depending on the extent of the work, and who's done it, can be acceptable in the vintage world, though obviously it will still impact upon the value of the watch, though not usually by anywhere near as much as a full wipe clean redial, such as the example given by the OP.

Vintage collectors value originality, whether that be watches, classic cars, art, etc etc. Hardly being 'anal'.