A Bit of a Gamble that Turned Out Well

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gaf1958
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A Bit of a Gamble that Turned Out Well

Post by gaf1958 »

I received two watches back from my watchmaker yesterday; this is one of them. I've worn it, once, a few months ago; it was a bit untidy: scratches on both the bezel and the insert, it needed some new collars in the bracelet links and the movement did not have a great power reserve. In short, it needed some attention, so it's been at the day spa for an extended visit, mostly spent waiting on parts.

The very first first Omega that I wanted, badly, to buy was the Seamaster 300M chronograph. In this case it was the classic blue model, with skeleton hands and Omega's take on the venerable 7750. I wanted one for years, but never bought one; instead, my first Omega was the non-chrono version of the 300M, which lasted for a little while until I got my first sword handed 300M. A chronograph version never followed for various reasons I guess; other Omegas took my eye more, particularly the Speedy in the chronograph line, so the Seamaster 300M remained an unrealised dream until I picked up my US Special Edition model recently.

It's a bit different from my original object of desire. It's not blue for one thing; it has a silver bezel, sword hands, not skeletons, has a silvery-grey dial and lightly contrasting silvery-white subdials. It also has my preferred 3-6-9 subdial layout, thanks to this one having a 3303 column wheel movement in place of the 7750 (with 6-9-12 subdials). As is often the case with the interwebs some people make much ado about the "unreliability" of the 33xx movements, citing early failures shortly after release. I'm sure there's some truth there, but a famous Mark Twain quote "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" springs to mind... The current reality is, that after those early failures, Omega released service upgrade to the parts that failed and all of these movements have those parts upgraded whenever a service is done, wll at least when done by authorised Omega watchmakers. The current reality is that these are now considered reliable movements (with a column wheel) and only the same few scaremongers out there keep reporting failures from their initial releases; nothing new for them to add there... I have a number of 33xx movements and have found them to be just fine...

The bracelet is the 5 link style commonly seen on 300M 3 handed models of the era, but instead of tapering to 17/18mm at the clasp, this is untapered and is 20mm all round. Maybe this helps with the slightly increased weight and bulk of the chronograph version, but it is comfortable. The case is the original 41mm size, not the enlarged 44mm version usually seen within 3-6-9 dial layouts and keeps the original 20mm lug size. I’ve been critical in the past about the readability of watches with “all silver” dials and hands, so it’s surprising that this presents only the occasional instance of needing to “rotate the wrist” in order to read the time. Part of it’s reflectivity of the edges of the hands, but I think it’s the large lumps of lume in the hands that mostly carry the day in that respect. Even when not shining brightly (and if you’ve ever owned a sword hand 300M you’ll know what I mean) it’s generally very readable, more so in fact that the (non-metallic) white dial SMPs I’ve previously owned (yes, some modded with sword hands).

The clasp was well knackered, so a replacement clasp was fitted to the band, which has had the requisite full pin and collar replacement, making it nice and tight again - that is one advantage of pins and collars over screw links. It also had a new bezel fitted, as the original was beyond anyone's ability to make it look decent again. All of these (often pricey) factors had been taken into account with the purchase price of the slightly sad original watch, but I guess you could say the the bones were all good, so repairs were certainly feasible and as it turns out, the total cost was comfortably less than the purchase of a nice looking one, which in any case may well need a service in the next year anyway. It was a bit of a gamble, but in this instance it turned out quite well. And now, some pictures...

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Re: A Bit of a Gamble that Turned Out Well

Post by JAFO »

^^^^

That's very nice. 3-6-9 always looks rather upmarket to me.
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Re: A Bit of a Gamble that Turned Out Well

Post by gaf1958 »

Quick photo update; after stepping inside after a few moments on the balcony,the lume is pretty good too…

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Re: A Bit of a Gamble that Turned Out Well

Post by nbg »

That looks lovely Gary.

And an excellent write up, as always. :thumbup:

Neil
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Re: A Bit of a Gamble that Turned Out Well

Post by tikkathree »

That's pretty outstanding to my eyes Gary.

A lovely mass of silveriness, yes really nice.
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Re: A Bit of a Gamble that Turned Out Well

Post by golfjunky »

A Nice sharp look you've got there bud.
Current collection = Omega Seamaster 2225.80.00, Omega Speedmaster 'Moonphase' 3576.50.00, Breitling Aerospace Evo, Vintage Azur, Vintage Seiko Sprtsman, Grand Seiko SBGX059, Omega SMP NTTD 210.92.42.20.01.001, Casioak Milkyway, Casioak Tiffany Sky.
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Re: A Bit of a Gamble that Turned Out Well

Post by ajax87 »

Turned out well? I’d say! Omega has a very thick backlog of references, but you always seem to zero in on really cool ones. This one is definitely one of them. :clap:
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Re: A Bit of a Gamble that Turned Out Well

Post by Leon O »

That's quite a looker. Your efforts certainly paid off.
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Re: A Bit of a Gamble that Turned Out Well

Post by Bahnstormer_vRS »

I saw this in the non CW of the Day thread recently Gary and remembered that I had not properly read your (this) excellent, as usual, introduction to the collection thread.

You must have the searching abilities of an Olympic standard Ferret to, well, ferret out theses gems for your collection (pun intended), along with a Watchmaker / repairer worth his weight in gold.

Shades of silver all round is never an issue for me especially with, as you mention, the lume being as strong as it is on this one.

Top notch all round.

Guy

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Re: A Bit of a Gamble that Turned Out Well

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

Bahnstormer_vRS wrote: Sat Apr 16, 2022 11:54 am Top notch all round.
I’ll echo that! Must have missed this first time around. I was trundling across the desert! :thumbup:
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