165.024 Omega Seamaster 300

The 165.024 was never a rare watch, but it is today. Examples that haven’t been messed about with are far less common than you may think. It’s a bit like the 964 911 if you’ll follow the over-used automotive analog. Everyone thought they were common as chips, 40-50K USD cars. Then I blinked and they’re five times the price, nowhere to be found. Five years ago, a perfect 165.024 was a 5K watch, everywhere. Then I blinked and the modern watch world was born. Now they’re between three and four times that, with great examples a really difficult hunt. Maybe I should just stop blinking. . .

In this market particularly, it’s actually quite refreshing to find a stock piece in honest condition. The preceeding 2913s are more usually original, however many of 165.024s and their generation are not. An Omega authorized, Australian service center WatchCo found a surplus of original Omega Seamaster 300 parts in the early 2000s. An enterprising service center, they began assembling these surplus parts into full watches and retailing these ‘NOS’ Seamasters and selling replacement parts. I would like to say for the record I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that in the slightest, but component watches should be represented as what they are though often are not. It makes this market a little more complex that your average vintage diver.

But it’s not like the underlying watch doesn’t deserve considerable value or attention. This is Omega at their best, a steel tool dependable enough to be issued to the Royal Navy. Sword hands, tritium dial, bakelite bezel, and acrylic crystal for all the vintage feel you could want.HF and CB cases for the nerds, both 42mm with lyre lugs. It’s every bit the watch a 5513 or Fifty Fathoms is, only slightly less collected for the length and quantity of production. Watches like this though? From the original owner with an original crystal even? That won’t be the case for much longer if history is any indication.

I wouldn’t be featuring a 165.024 if it weren’t the kind of example you’d lust over. This dial is untouched and well-aged, perfectly matched in the handset and bezel. It came from its original owner, and is supplied with an extract of archive confirming 1967 production. It comes from a well-regarded English retailer.

Find this 165.024 here from Mann About Time for 11500 GBP.