Cost of Repair

[denrusso]

A few years back, my father-in-law gave me is circa 1959/1960 Constellation that his father had bought for him in Europe.

He had already broken the crystal at some point and had a bad replacement installed on it. Also, the original bracelet is long gone. The face of the dial has a nice patina to it and I think it looks great.

Well, after he gave it to me I took it to the Omega store in NYC and purchased a nice leather band/buckle for it for roughly $400.

I think two days after that the seconds hand separated and lodged itself towards the bottom of the time piece. Begrudgingly, I placed it on my desk and left it there for a few years.

Well we traveled down to Naples this year to visit him and I remembered to take it with me to bring to the Omega store located within the Waterside shops.

They are mostly concerned about the dial of the watch. It may be cleanable or it may be too damaged and would need to be replaced. In any case, the watch is tool old to be worked on stateside and needs to be shipped to Switzerland. Once there, I will get actually estimate for the repair.

However, they will not send it unless I authorize a maximum repair budget of $2,500. This seems high, but given the vintage, it needs a service, and crystal will be replaced, maybe not so?

Any thoughts on this?


Thanks!
dr

[Maxtor]

A repair at $2,500 may not make strict sense from a financial POV... but it may make lots of sense from a sentimental family history POV. I guess you will have to decide what it is worth to you to have this particular 60 year old watch repaired. Good luck.

[FTX I]

The cost is absurd.

[winst]

There will be an independent watch dealer near you that I’m sure will be able to get it up and running again for you probably for under $600. You just need to keep looking on the internet and asking around.

[AboutTime]

A few years ago I acquired a 50-year old stainless steel manual-wind Omega "Geneve." The watch was in what I considered excellent condition cosmetically; the crystal was damaged but the dial appeared to require no restoration. The watch would run after some shaking but I couldn't manually wind it and the o-ring disintegrated when the case was opened for inspection. I eventually decided to have my local Omega boutique send the watch to Omega for service. The watch was forwarded on to Switzerland for repair and was away from home for a number of months. When the watch finally returned to the local boutique it looked almost new and it ran exceptionally well. A year later it's still performing very well, it looks great, and the 34 mm case size makes it a beautiful thin dress watch. The total cost was $550, exactly the figure quoted prior to service (although that didn't include the required new strap).

It's true that the watch is no longer all original but I don't care. Omega did return a bag of original parts that were replaced during service.

I would attach an photo of the watch but I currently have no web hosting service. I guess it's time to figure out how to replace my old Photobucket site.

[winst]

Don’t know how long ago you sent it back, but for my 50 year old Cal 613 Geneve in good condition they want about £850 to send it back to Omega which is more than the watch is worth. A local watchmaker is going to service it now with a new mainspring for me at £150.

[AEC]

Contact Omega Customer Service stateside at (800) 766-6342, tell them you have an old watch for Restoration Service, and you would like a shipping label for sending it to them for that service (it'll go to Omega stateside first, then they'll forward it on to Bienne).

Once your watch is in Bienne, it will be evaluated and you will receive a quote for the total cost of Restoration Service. If you don't want to authorize it, then Omega will return the watch to you for a very small fee that covers shipping (this was the policy a few years ago, so you may want to check if it's still true).

Here's a link to the page on Omega's site discussing Restoration Services, including a quoted price of $1,500 for the service: https://www.omegawatches.com/en-us/c...es/restoration

I've never had a watch done there, but friends on TZ and other watch forums have been very satisfied with the results on watches they had restored. Some day I'll inherit my dad's gold pie-pan Constellation that my mom gave him on their wedding day, and my plan is to ship it over there for restoration

[AboutTime]

Originally Posted by winst

Don’t know how long ago you sent it back, but for my 50 year old Cal 613 Geneve in good condition they want about £850 to send it back to Omega which is more than the watch is worth. A local watchmaker is going to service it now with a new mainspring for me at £150.

My 50-year old Omega Geneve model (cal 550) was serviced in the first half of 2019. It's a lovely 3-hand watch without a date window, as I prefer.

[denrusso]

Thank you everyone for you input on this!

I delayed my response a bit and they came back to me with a $2,000 max authorization which I approved.

I will be sure to post pics once I get it back in hand!!


Thanks!
dr