Don't miss the next drop
Two letters stamped under the caseback of this 1961 Omega Seamaster name the firm that made its case. C.B. is the mark of Centrale Boîtes, a case maker in Biel, and Speedmaster collectors know those initials well. In the mid-1960s Omega had Centrale Boîtes produce a batch of Speedmaster Professional cases, reference 105.012-66, beside its regular supplier Huguenin Frères. Those watches are known by a suffix of their own, 105.012-66 CB, and the flattened tops of their twisted lugs give them away.
This case asked less of its maker. It is a round 34mm stainless steel Seamaster with a screw-in back, reference 14761, which Omega introduced to its collection in 1960. Beside the C.B. the inner back reads 14761 61 SC, and the movement serial, 18565997, belongs to Omega’s 1961 numbering.
Its era shows most plainly on the dial. Two fine lines cross at the center and cut the off-white field into quarters, a crosshair, the device that spread across watch dials in the 1950s as a sign of precision and stayed in use well into the following decade. Here the lines run out to wide rectangular markers at 12, 3, 6 and 9, with slimmer faceted batons between them and a dotted minute track at the edge, so each quarter hour is drawn twice, once by the lines and again by the heavier block. Greenish and pale specks are scattered across the off-white, and the broad, pointed hands are mottled, while the printing stays legible from the Omega name down to SWISS MADE.
Under the back runs the caliber 552, Omega’s 24-jewel automatic without a date. It belongs to a family that Omega built from 1958 to 1969, the 550 through the 565, in plain, date and chronometer-grade forms.
The watch sits on a stainless steel bracelet of multi-row links, steel against steel from the lugs to the clasp. Fine scratches run along the flanks and across the back from years of wear. The C.B. stays out of sight under the screw-in back, the same initials a Speedmaster collector checks for inside the back of a 105.012-66.
