Recent arrival...serious vintage Omega content!
Even though much of my contact with the watch world involves repair work I`m still predominantly a collector/enthusiast at heart, I`d give up working on them tomorrow but I`d never stop owning/collecting. Here's a C-cased Constellation one I bought recently from SC for my own collection, I owned the slightly later version several years ago and regretted selling, so I was pleased to end up with this watch, dating from 1972, original dial, correct brick-link bracelet and the bonus of the original papers which turned out to be quite useful. An excellent example at a price I was v. pleased with, this watch has had some good work done in the past....more of that later.
After a dose of light refinishing, repolishing the crystal, fitting a new crown and caseback seal, and polishing a light engraving out of the clasp, here's how it now looks. It's a 35mm watch but it suits my 6.75" wrist nicely, I don`t do big watches!
https://i.postimg.cc/MGv9Nn1W/DSCN6885.jpgupload foto
The picture doesn`t capture the dial well, it has a faint starburst grain that creates a mellow look as the light hits it. All surfaces are correctly finished and the edges are still nice and sharp, it was in good condition when it arrived but now it's just 'sharper' and the scratches have gone. Apart from the odd nick here and there which couldn't sensibly be removed the case and bracelet are like new. This is what the owner saw on his wrist in 1972 and that's what I`m seeing now. Light refinishing is an understatement, the whole case has been stripped down, including removal of the bezel, it's the only way to do them correctly. The clasp had a very light engraving which didn`t take much effort to remove, it needed refinishing anyway. When these are poorly refinished the Omega stamping gets worn down, but with care it can retain the original look.
https://i.postimg.cc/jSHWKTYB/DSCN6883.jpg
When doing a full job on a watch I usually do the movement first, thus allowing it to run and settle on the bench whilst the laborious work on the case and bracelet takes place. I did this the other way around, having stripped the movement it seemed OK and I didn`t expect problems, I do refinishing work in bite-sized chunks because I don`t enjoy it so I spent around 1 week working on this in and amongst other activities.
Generally, an Omega 550/560 will give problems with the rotor bush, reverser, and mainspring barrel. This one's had the rotor bush replaced at some point and the reverser felt smooth. The spring barrel was heavily worn and needed replacement, as did the mainspring. The watch would run and soldier on with the worn parts but they were definitely ripe for replacement. Should've been straightforward, but it wasn`t. Turns out the mainplate was very heavily worn in the area where the stem runs. I`d missed this when dismantling the movement, they're always a little worn but this was bad. It's not obvious when the movement's in the watch because the crown running on the pendant tube supports the stem and disguises the wear.
https://i.postimg.cc/bvCDsRVh/DSCN6868.jpg
My finger's pulling the stem in one direction to highlight the wear, I`ve never seen one as bad as this! Thankfully, I have a couple of parts movements so I stripped one down and cleaned the mainplate, which turned out to be OK with minimal wear.
https://i.postimg.cc/yNP59D0B/DSCN6869.jpgupload pictures
https://i.postimg.cc/d3dgh4BN/DSCN6870.jpg
I`ve highlighted the area that wears, the design of the stem doesn`t help because the contact area is small and concentrated in one spot. The quickset date, operated by pulling the crown to click the date forward, will contribute, but the main culprit is excessive hand-winding over a long period of time and possible misalignment of the movement in the case. A poorly fitted pendant tube or a bent stem would also cause this....... the watch can`t talk I can only speculate.
Unfortunately, restoring this movement has highlighted a common issue with old Omegas, that's the mismatch of the plating on the movement parts. If a movement has all its original parts it's a fair bet that the plating will be a consistent colour, they vary from a deep copper to a lighter gold, don`t know why but they do. Different cleaning solutions can alter the colour slightly, but all the bridges and plates should be a similar hue. However, mismatched colours doesn`t necessarily mean a bad watch, or something cobbled up from parts, it can mean that parts have needed replacement and the available items simply aren`t a good match. It's always nice to see a clean movement with all matching parts, but these watches are 50+ years old and it's inevitable that work will have been carried out. In the past Omega used to offer the whole auto-winding bridge and parts (including rotor) on an exchange basis and that was the easiest way forward, so parts did get swapped,
Here's the finished movement, minus the auto-winding bridge
https://i.postimg.cc/43vdcRfV/DSCN6875.jpgfree photo uploading
Here's the auto-winding.....note the mismatch between rotor and bridge, but the rotor's a good one so there's no way I`m swapping it!
https://i.postimg.cc/3R43BM7t/DSCN6874.jpgupload photos in fb
Here's what you see when opening up the back
https://i.postimg.cc/pTD6xkB2/DSCN6876.jpg
Here's the collector's conundrum: the watch is a great example, running well, thoroughly sorted out, but the mismatch of colours is plain to see. The train wheel bridge is original because it's got the serial number (which matches the papers!) but the auto-winding bridge has probably been replaced (even though it's correct for a 564 chronometer movement) and we know the mainplate's definitely been swapped. Despite what the sages say, I would never dismiss a vintage Omega on the appearance of the movement if the only issues were mismatch of parts colour. In this case the original papers are helpful, basically the movement is original to the watch although there's an obvious 'Triggers Broom' element with parts being replaced. Sometimes replacement parts match up correctly and the owner would never suspect anything's been changed, but not in this case. This also highlights the futility of the birth-year thing, swapping the train wheel bridge can changes the year of the watch to whatever the buyer wishes to see.
I'm v. pleased with this watch, it ticks all the boxes for me, the back's screwed on and it's staying there. This is the view I prefer.
https://i.postimg.cc/XYwYC6x3/DSCN6884.jpg
