Omega Seamaster 300 Royal Navy Issue Ref.165.024 MilSub

Today's example is something a bit special, It is one of the rarest and coveted Military Omegas in the Vintage Watch World, the Omega Seamaster 300 Royal Navy Issue.

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The British MoD took delivery of these Mil-Spec Seamaster 300s between 1967 and 1971. They differed from the civilian version in three ways: first, the dial. A circled T was placed to indicate presence of Tritium loud and clear. However, there are some genuine mil-spec watches from early production which lacked this. Second, fixed spring bars; this diver is NATO-only, it won’t be failing at a springbar any time soon. Third, the caseback engravings. Half of these went to the Army and half went to the Royal Navy. Army engravings begin with ‘W10’ while Navy engravings begin ‘0552’.

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This guy was delivered to the British Military in March 1967, we know this because the Watch is accompanied by an Omega extract of the archives. The Watch has been part of a respected Military Collection for around 15 years. In 2015, Omega was approached to provide this extract for the collector, which they provided the following information, the Watch was delivered to the British Military on March 9th 1967. However recently, the collector spotted a mistake on the extract that was issued, the serial number on the extract is 24,XXX,X48 and the Movement serial number is actually 24,XXX,X42. 6 away. Despite this admin error, Omega remains stoic in that the extract department is now closed. The closeness of the serials however we can comfortably say it's very likely that this was delivered on the same day.

Despite the delivery date being in 1967, the Watch was issued to a Royal Navy Diver in 1970, this is not unheard of for these. One for the serious Military Collector.

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The Specs