# Franken-Omega



## Tomcat1960 (Apr 13, 2013)

*medinfoto*'s story of his oddball Longines reminded me of my first Omega *g* I found its story interesting enough to share it with you, but opted against publishing it in *medinfoto*'s Longines thread.










I bought it because I liked the dial, and because it sports the fine 564 movement. Some research unearthed the following facts:

- The logo is for 'McMillan-Bloedel', Canadian foresters, afair from Vancouver, B.C. So - a service watch? Not so fast - the lid is from a 1962 Seamaster. It accidentally fits the gilt case which is from another "Omega Automatic" (yeah, they had some around 1960 that didn't belong to a 'line'). (Normally, the lid should sport something like "For 25 years of truthful service ... Herman M. Smith, Engineer" (or something like this).)

- Most Omegas given as service watches were actually not dialled at Omega's factory but by resident jewellers/watchmakers who often had dials printed 'to order'.

- Finally, the movement: I doubt that 564s were ever issued in anything other than Constellations (and a few Seamaster Chronometers). These watches were "top-of-the-line" at Omega's and it is hard to believe that someone issued these as a service watch to anyone but the highest-ranking employee (in which case it wouldn't have ended up on Ebay, anyway.)

My guess is that the story runs more like this: the watch started life as a regular "Automatic" with a 562 movement. Maybe, it was issued as a Service watch, maybe it wasn't. If it was, I guess the person who received it was fired some time after. Disgruntled as he was he threw away the back lid and tossed the watch somewhere in a locker or so. Due to the missing lid it picked up moisture and started to rust.

Years after, someone found it, realized the beautiful rose-gilt movement and carried it to a watchmaker. For a reason unbeknownst to me, this watchmaker had a 564 lying. He didn't care much about this mechanical piece of junk ... Quartz was the choice of the day back then ... and dropped it into the watch. Because the stem had been lost from the 564 he replaced it with the stem from the 562 (a fact that was revealed only when my watchmaker looked into the watch). He did some other weird things to it, involving gobs of glue, sticky tape and a non-marked crystal - or, as my watchmaker put it: "a textbook example of how n o t to do it."

So my first Omega turned out to be the most thorough Frankenwatch you can think of, but I still like its looks and the way it keeps time with its venerable 564 movement. Thanks to my watchmaker even the date quickset works as it should

It's not destined to leave me anytime soon, anyway.

Regards

Tomcat

PS: I'll try and upload some additional photos tonight.


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## JD6150 (May 23, 2013)

Interesting story, thanks for sharing and a very nice looking watch (and very fine looking cat)


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## Tomcat1960 (Apr 13, 2013)

Thank you, also from Tiffany (the fine-looking cat  )

As promised, a few more pics:














































Regards,

Tomcat


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