Vintage
Sherwin (shw24) shares the deeply personal journey of restoring his grandfather's Omega, a family heirloom that holds immense sentimental value. This article explores the challenges and triumphs of bringing a vintage timepiece back to life, resonating with collectors who value heritage over market price.
Hi Guys,
Just want to share one of the happiness that I've got this year. Nothing special from the piece itself but what makes it important to me is that it is my family hairloom.
The story begin that last christmas, all my family gather in my house for christmas party at night and use the event to clean up the house in the afternoon before the party and opened the safe box where my grandparents used to store all the impartant documents. They found a box which contain an omega watch and some other lady's watches. My mom gave the omega to me knowing that I have interest of collecting vintage watches. When I received it, the condition is really bad. It is not working at all, the dial has been replaced with a nasty redialed dial, crack crystal and also gypsum which tell the story that my grandfather was a dentist and own a lab. It does tell the story that he wear this watch while working in the lab. The interesting one is that my grandfather was passed away in mid 60's and the dial has been replaced? this is the question that never been answered until now. The watch been kept in the box since he was passed away.
It is not a rare piece by any means, but since it is an family hariloom, the restoration journey begun. It takes couple of months to find a nicely aged dial (hopefully it is original this time), repairing the movement, and clean up the case. It involve may parties that help me during the restoration (Big thanks to Kucimo, Hendra and Ridwan). Finally, I receive the piece back from the Watchmaker, and I was so happy to see it working, in clean condition. The price I paid for the restoration maybe more than the value of the watch itself, but it is worthed.
This is my first restoration project and it end up with happy ending. Maybe black croco strap is better but anyway, I've got the brown one in my stash, so that I can share the photo with you.
Finally.... here we go... the forgotten heirloom after the spa.
Regards,
Sherwin
I actually like it on the brown strap. Something to pass on to your children now Yours, Andy.
Thanks Andy. It does looks good on light brown croco. Just thingking of if the black one will give more contrast. Regards, Sherwin Powered by Telkomsel BlackBerry®
It's really nice to have an heirloom from your grandparents. Yes and I can understand the attitude that it is worth far more than the market value of the watch. Treasure it and pass it on. Thanks for sharing - I'd love to know the calibre and the case reference number if you have it to hand Cheers Andrew
Thank you Andrew. The case ref is 2576, and it is cal 342. The movt serial number is 11.4 mio which if I dated it correctly it comes from the late 40's. What makes the dial hunt is more challenging is to find the one without seamaster script and with luminous arabic marker and sharp indexes which is similar looking with the redialed dial belongs to my grandfather. Does the dial without seamaster script is correct for late 40's? Thanks, Sherwin Powered by Telkomsel BlackBerry®
Nice piece and story, thanks for sharing.
Thank you cicindela Powered by Telkomsel BlackBerry®
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