Don't miss the next drop
The caliber 600 is the reason this reference matters to us. Omega introduced the 600 in 1960 as the manual-wind workhorse of the dress Seamaster catalog, and built it around a swan-neck regulator, the small curved spring you can see arcing over the balance in our movement photographs. Two years later Omega replaced the 600 with the caliber 601, a cost-reduced revision that swapped the swan-neck for the cheaper excenter pointer regulator that became the standard fitment across the rest of the 1960s production. In our opinion the original 600, with its swan-neck still intact, is the version of this movement family worth chasing, and a clean vintage Omega Seamaster powered by the early caliber rather than the later one is the configuration we always pause for.
The Omega Seamaster line was introduced in 1948 to mark the brand’s centenary, taking the waterproof case construction Omega had refined for the British military during the Second World War and translating it into a civilian dress watch the postwar market could actually buy. By the early 1960s the line had branched into specific reference families keyed to their movements, and the 135.xxx references were the manual-wind branch built around the new caliber 600 and 601 movements. The 135.005 sits at the start of that family, produced from roughly 1963 through the mid-1960s in a 33.5mm stainless steel case, and represents one of the cleanest expressions of early-1960s Omega design language we know.
The caliber 600 itself runs at 19,800 vibrations per hour across 17 jewels and was adjusted in one position, with the OMEGA WATCH CO. signature and ADJUSTED 1 POSITION text engraved across the train wheel bridge exactly as our movement macro shows. The copper-toned bridge finishing, the swan-neck regulator with its index pointer riding the curved spring, the perlage across the mainplate, and the Geneva-stripe-style finishing on the barrel bridge all read as a mid-tier manual-wind movement Omega was still putting real finishing work into during a period when most of the Swiss industry had started cutting corners. The serial number visible on the bridge places this example in the early-1960s production window consistent with the 135.005 reference.
The 33.5mm stainless steel case wears beautifully on a modern wrist for what it is, a dress watch from 1963 that the contemporary collector market has rediscovered for its restraint. The case measures 33.5mm across, 40.2mm lug-to-lug, with an 18mm lug width, and the brushed-and-polished surfaces still carry their original geometry across the slim downturned lugs and the smooth bezel. The honest scratching across the steel records the watch’s six decades of careful wear rather than aggressive polishing. The original Omega-signed crown sits at 3, still showing the Omega logo clearly stamped into the crown face as our side-profile macro confirms. The screw-down caseback carries the Seamaster Hippocampus emblem, the small seahorse medallion Omega has used to signal the Seamaster line since the early 1950s, and the inner caseback dust cover is stamped ACIER INOXYDABLE alongside the Omega Watch Co. triangle logo and the 135.005 reference, with the decorative circles finishing applied across the cover surface.
The factory cross-hair silver sunburst dial is the visual headline. The sunburst pattern radiates from the center of the dial outward through the four quadrants defined by the cross-hair, the fine horizontal and vertical lines that intersect at the dial center and divide the surface into the geometric grid that gives this dial its name. Applied black baton hour markers ring every hour position, with the applied Omega logo above the printed OMEGA text at 12 and the cursive Seamaster script above SWISS MADE at 6. The dauphine hour and minute hands carry the open-tipped configuration period-correct for the 135.005, with a slim center seconds hand sweeping the full dial. The dial has aged with restraint over six decades, with the silver canvas slightly warmed and a light scattering of speckles across the surface that read as genuine age rather than damage. This is a factory original dial, unrefinished, with every printed marker and applied component reading exactly as Omega produced it. Refinished dials destroy the value of any vintage Omega and the originality of the dial is the single most important factor on any reference this old.
We have paired the watch with a gray Italian suede strap with cream contrast stitching and an OTTUHR signed buckle. The gray suede picks up the steel tones of the case without competing with the silver dial, and the suede texture gives the package a soft, slightly casual weight that lets the 33.5mm dress case wear with the kind of low-key confidence the 135.005 was designed for.
Serviced in-house at OTTUHR and backed by our 2-year mechanical warranty, this is exactly the kind of early-1960s vintage Omega Seamaster we get genuinely excited about. Factory cross-hair dial, original Omega-signed crown, intact Seamaster Hippocampus caseback, and the swan-neck caliber 600 rather than the later excenter 601 driving the whole package. For the collector who reads movement details closely, who values the swan-neck regulator over the cost-reduced revision that followed it, and who wants a clean early-1960s dress Seamaster with the original caliber still inside it, this is the kind of watch we love bringing in.
