A tale of three Seamaster 300's. New meets old, meets new again.

Through a strange set of circumstances that only a watch nut would understand, I now find myself in possession of three Omega Seamaster 300’s. On its own, this might seem understandable; I’m sure that someone reading this article will be thinking, “Wait, this is weird?” After all, it’s well known that things like Omega Seamasters and Victorinox Pioneers do have a way of coming and going over the years, and sometimes piling up. Some of us are passive accumulators and some active hoarders, but in my case, I will plead Temporary Seamaster Insanity. If you were thinking you had a couple things you needed to confess to your significant other, you might direct them to this article as proof of your relative sanity.

Seamasters and Pioneers…

With age and maturity, and a conscious effort to settle down with just a small harem of only the coolest watches, I decided that I should finally commission a Watchco-style SM300 that would be my Seamaster To End All Seamasters. And keep it forever. And not buy any more watches. Ever. You know, that old story.

You see, I owned a reference 166.0324 Watchco about a decade ago. A lovely watch, it had been found by my good friend, Brian, who wore it for a few weeks and then shipped it to me with a note that said, “This belongs with you. Don’t get too excited – you still owe me $2,700.” Although I loved the watch, I never liked it having a date indicator (to say nothing of the janky pull-push quick change feature of the caliber 565 movement), and eventually I sold it to another watch friend.

The Watchco that started it all. By arriving with an invoice.

I began my quest for the Seamaster To End All Seamasters by lining up a watchmaker willing to help, which is not so easy, it turns out. I then sourced a donor watch with a good caliber 552 movement (which isn’t that hard, it turns out). The donor watch arrived and I was thrilled to see that not only was the movement serial-number-plausible for a DIY reference 165.024 SM300, but it was also quite pristine. Yes! This was September, and here I was, only a few weeks and a few more dollars away from having my very own built-from-scratch 1960’s-vintage SM300. At last!

Caliber 552 movement from donor watch. Note the 22M serial number.

But no, because it’s at this point that calamity struck, which I figure is what I deserve for even thinking in terms of harems. Omega, sneakily and quietly, pulled the rug out from under me sometime in late summer, 2021. In July, anyone with a Swatch Group parts account could still order a brand new service case, but by October Omega had changed their rules and now required that you supply an existing case in exchange. My crest, once so perky, had fallen.

Family heirloom Seamaster, a caliber 284 gentleman’s watch in stainless steel.

I came to terms with my new situation, however, helped by the same friend and enabler who had sent me that original Watchco with a reverse IOU 10 years prior, who now hipped me to the fact that the 2021 Heritage Seamaster 300 was a brilliant watch that fixed everything I hated about the 2014 SM300 I had previously owned (which was, in short: poorly legible, too tall, and waaay too shiny). Hmm, the new SM300 has tasteful vintage cues, modern design and build quality, and the coolest, most accurate and robust movement on the planet? Sign me up. So I placed an order with my AD, the wonderful Continental Diamond in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and gave up on my Watchco scheme. I figured I could always find a previously-loved Watchco down the road and then at least I’d have a spare movement for it.

The superb Heritage SM300. Lollipop, lume, and legibility.

In terms of mindsets, this worked great until one day while I was patiently waiting for my brand new Heritage Seamaster to come in, and wouldn’t you know it but someone found my neglected wanted-to-buy post for a genuine Omega service case I had made months prior. After careful vetting and a ton of input from my watchmaker, I negotiated a fair price and suddenly the Watchco project was back on. Which is sort of like your wife telling you she’s pregnant three months after your vasectomy, and realizing that you never went back for that final confirmation test. But this is when you think, “All Seamasters are gifts from God. I should rejoice!”

The case ref 165.0024 Omega service case. Do your homework, buy the seller, and be skeptical.

So, here I was waiting for my brand new bought-and-paid-for Heritage SM300 to arrive, with a Watchco-style SM300 project suddenly back on the front burner. Yes! But, no. The project was quickly reduced to a simmer when the watchmaker I had lined up, and upon whom I had relied so heavily in vetting the service case, was apparently too busy to build my watch. I was disappointed, but had no choice other than to go in search of a new watchmaker. This is the part of the story where I remind you that if you are more inclined toward the accumulator end of the spectrum, it’s really important to turn off your Watch Recon search alerts once you’ve accepted your fate and stopped searching for a particular watch.

The 165.024 was stunning in its as-found condition. E-mail for pictures, indeed.

Sure enough, by Thanksgiving I had literally (as in figuratively) stumbled across a poorly listed, 100% original, circa 1967 reference 165.024 SM300 for sale. And when I say poorly listed, I mean really poorly listed, as in, “email for pictures” poorly listed. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice to say that I backed out of the deal no fewer than three times because there were so many “Danger, Will Robinson!” cues. (Quick example — payment by postal money order mailed to a PO Box — who does this?) But I did more homework; I leveraged my watch network (and my golf network, which consists of one friend); I checked references; I Googled the supposed seller and called him out of the blue at his alleged place of purported work; and finally, finally, convinced him to accept PayPal. Which pissed him off something fierce when PayPal, no doubt reacting to the size of the transaction relative to the dormancy of his account, smelled a rat and put a three week hold on my payment. At Christmas.

The 165.024 in as-found condition. Clockwise from upper left: cracking and aged lume of hands, crazing in crystal, dial in great shape, and crown and stem quite badly crudded up.

Let’s recap. At this point in the story, I am patiently waiting for my brand new bought-and-paid-for Heritage SM300 to arrive. Seems pretty normal, no? But I’m also looking for a new watchmaker with a Swatch Group parts account to complete my half-baked, built-from-parts Watchco-style SM300 project. Which seems a little like we’re approaching the slippery slope of bad judgment, and now my wife knows I am thinking about harems, too. The fact that I am also waiting for a relatively expensive basket case (oops, I mean “100% original”) vintage 165.024 SM300 to arrive is the final nail in my sanity’s apparent coffin, and possibly makes very real the prospect of spending the holidays in the figurative (as in literal) doghouse.

From L to R: Original 165.024 SM300, Heritage SM300, and freshly assembled 165.0024.

There I was, with what felt like several zillion dollars invested in all manner of Seamaster 300 hardware, none of which I actually possessed. This is sort of like when your wife tells you that the post-vasectomy miracle baby pregnancy is, in fact, triplets. It’s at this point in the story that I make a new friend through my watch strap hobby biz. (Quick aside — you can’t support yourself making watch straps, but you make a lot of cool friends, which is just as good if not better, even though you can’t eat friendship.) This friend, also a Brian, has an amazing watch collection, and I do mean amazing. So one day I ask Also Brian where he has his stuff serviced, and he hips me to his California-based watchmaker, but swears me to secrecy. Not kidding.

Also Brian’s very tasty Heuer 1550 SG “3H” on a Rover Haven Bund.

It’s at this point in the story that I share with you the heartbreak I experienced when my local watchmaker decided to retire and move back to Switzerland. It’s been a rough few years, let me tell you. I’ve gotten by, but I’ve also gotten away from old watches and watch projects, preferring the project-free newness of modern watches. So you can imagine my delight when I made an inquiry with Also Brian’s watchmaker and got a near-instant reply in the affirmative. Yes! Seamaster 300 projects simmering on the back burner, meet the front burner and full boil!

The 165.0024 freshly assembled.

So before the brand new bought-and-paid-for Heritage Seamaster had even arrived, I mailed off the two vintage watch projects. The original watch for a full service and sympathetic restoration, and the service case with pristine donor movement for servicing, assembly, and completion. I felt fortunate that the watchmaker even accepted the work, and would have been happy to get the watches back 8-12 months later. So I felt downright lucky and elated when I received the completed watches only a couple months later in mid-April, for a reasonable charge, and feeling like I had made yet another friend along the way. This is like when your teenagers, the miracle babies you were never planning on conceiving in the first place, grow up and come back to you as intelligent, compassionate, clued-in adults with good taste in pocket knives and watches.

Ref 165.0024 (L) and 165.024 (R). Note the carefully re-lumed hands on the 165.024.

About three weeks before the vintage projects were finished up, the brand new bought-and-paid-for 2021 Seamaster arrived from Continental Diamond. It is a perfect gem of industrial art on your wrist, keeps near atomic time, and has the nuclear lume to match. I had worn it exclusively, 24/7, for a fair few weeks when the pair of vintage SM300’s showed up. Now, if this had all unfolded over the course of a decade it would seem like a measured, balanced, and quite reasonable journey through Seamaster Land. Heck, even five years would make you look pretty normal to your non-watchie friends, although I concede that’s pushing it. But the fact is that it unfolded over the course of seven months, which is why I’m hoping (and claiming to my long-suffering spouse) that my Seamaster insanity is temporary. You can see why I won’t be buying any new watches any time soon. I mean, ever. (Ok, pocket knives are a different story.)

Classics.

Just to wrap up with a word to the wise, now’s a good time to mention that the market is flooded with fake SM300 parts. If you are planning on having a Watchco-style SM300 built, you must exercise extreme caution, do your homework, be skeptical, and buy the seller when it comes to sourcing these parts. No doubt Omega’s recent change of heart regarding their willingness to supply service cases to anyone with a Swatch Group parts account will only make this worse, too.

Thanks for sticking with me here. Do you have a Watchco, a beautiful vintage SM300, or a brand new bought-and-paid-for Heritage SM300? I’d love to hear from you on this or any other topic. Thanks for reading.