Hello! New to Omega and these forums

Hello everyone!

Just wanted to say hello and give a short introduction.
My name is Magnus, i'm 30 years old, from Sweden and have never collected or really been interested in watches before.
Not until i was bitten by the vintage omega beast as someone put it that is. 😜

I also want to say thank you to all forum members whose posts i have been reading before and while deciding to buy my first Omegas and a special thanks to Desmond for his awesome site with lots and lots of valuable information. 😀

I just recently bought my first two vintage Omega Constellations and will follow up with some info and pics of them soon, probably followed by some questions.

Cheers!
/Magnus

Hi & welcome! Fellow Swede here. We are quite a few by now on the Forum

😲

Välkommen! Many hurdiburdiswedishchefherehurduburi.

Thank you guys! 😀

As promised i'll start by sharing some pictures and the story of my first watch.
I found it at a Swedish auctionhouse and thought it had a nice and clean look to it (though it was pretty dirty).
I realize i might have been bidding against some of you guys here. 😜
The information provided was:
Omega Constellation, stainless steel, 1966, automatic, pie-pan dial, date, ref. 168.005, cal. 561, nr. 24420643
Crystal and case with scrathes.

These pictures are from the auction:



From the pictures and specs i decided it was highly likely to be authentic and not modified (thanks again for all your help in leading me to this conclusion). The bracelet was some speidel flex but i didn't care much about that, i would just have to find a better match and replace it. The only thing that worried me was that "swiss made" didn't show in the pictures but as i really liked the general look of it i decided to bid on it, got slightly carried away and finally won. 😀

When it finally arrived the crystal was worse than could be seen in the pictures, the crown came loose when turned counter-clockwise and the movement didn't keep very accurate time.
Some initial inspection showed that it looked pretty much ok but that it could use a new gasket.



So, as i am a rookie to all of this i decided i probably could not do much about these problems myself and that i should leave it to a pro.
Instead i turned my attention towards finding another bracelet for the watch.

Here we go

🤬 I missed another romp? How can PatrickJ say "Here we go" to ConElPueblo's 😲 if CEP never posted?!?!?!?!?!?

Oh 🤬 I now see CEP did post that 😲. Dang it..........

I'm not sure what's going on 😜

After scouting around on ebay for bracelets to match this kind of watch for a while I found myself looking for a Beads of Rice bracelet, they were just really good looking.

Suddenly a bracelet in pretty good shape and with seemingly correct number and logo appeared:
"1961 GENTS OMEGA STEEL OVAL LINK RICEBEAD BRACELET 18MM REF.8220 & 11 END PIECES"
As a bonus the ends included was nr 11 which, from what I could find online, should fit my case.
These pictures are from the auction:



Said and done I won the auction.
Upon delivery I fitted the bracelet to the case and they looked really neat together!



Now pretty content with the general appearance of the watch i decided it was time to give it a good service and have that worn crystal replaced.

Congrats Magnus, you are doing progress! 👍

After emailing a bit with a watchmaker that was recommended to me by a friend I sent him the watch by post for a general checkup and service.

After a few days he had examined the watch and gave the verdict:
* The rotor had slightly touched the movement so the rotor axle should be adjusted or possibly replaced.
* The crystal was very worn, not original and would be replaced.
* The crown was original and the gasket seemed ok.
* The caseback gasket had to be replaced.
* To make it keep accurate time he recommended a full teardown, clean and rebuild of the movement.
* To top it of he offered to give it a very gentle polish to bring out the matted parts vs the shiny ones.

As I thought this sounded somewhere along the lines of my expectations I accepted the offer and asked him to give it the attention it needed.
I also asked him to examine the 'black paint' on the tips of the hands to see if it could gently be removed.

After a few days and some emails back and forth I got some nice pictures of the different parts of the watch and movement:



The damage to the dial was more apparent without the glass but I still thought it looked pretty good and most importantly it was the real deal. 😀

Actually I think the dial looks far better out from behind that scratched up crystal.👍 Looks like you will have a very nice Constellation when this is finished.

After another few days work on the movement had progressed and I got some pictures of it while it was being re-assembled and fine tuned.



The now gently polished case and bracelet looked pretty awesome.



Once everything was put back together it was posted back to me. I couldn't wait to see the result with for myself.
When it arrived i really liked what i saw. The end result was quite stunning, i just had to get my camera out and get a picture of it.
After constructing a small light-room from Styrofoam and getting the tripod out i managed to get a pretty good picture.



The picture has not been manipulated in any other way that adjusting the white balance.
I guess that concludes the story of my first watch which I can now wear with pride. 😁
Thanks to watchmaker Anders Carlsson for his excellent work with it!

Hi Magnus
Very detailed ,from start to finish. I enjoyed the journey.
Regards
Jeff

good show, will you keep it and collect more project type watches?

It's great to have you onboard, welcome.