Don't miss the next drop
This dial goes by several names among collectors: ribbon, curtain, tapestry and côtes de Genève, the last borrowed from the Geneva stripes that Swiss watchmakers put on movement bridges and plates. On this Omega Seamaster 165.009 the bands alternate in tone across the silver dial, so each stripe lightens or darkens against its neighbor as the watch tilts.
The ribbon belongs to a group of special dials that turned up on Seamasters in the early 1960s, alongside patterns now known as clamshell and concentric rings. The same striped texture shows up on several Seamaster references of the period, among them the 14700, the 14770 and the 14777, which makes it a family trait rather than a one-off. Here the texture carries the whole design. Plain baton markers, dial text limited to OMEGA, AUTOMATIC, Seamaster and SWISS MADE, and no date window leave the stripes running uninterrupted from edge to edge.
This one wears a beads-of-rice bracelet, rows of small rounded links that collectors named for grains of rice. Omega stamped the bracelet number on the clasp and the end-link number on the end pieces, which makes the pairing easy to read: the folding clasp carries 1502 with the Omega name and STAINLESS STEEL, and both end pieces are marked 11. Collectors know that combination as the 1502/11 beads-of-rice.
Under the screw-down back, which bears the Seamaster medallion, runs Omega’s caliber 552 automatic, so the watch winds itself on the wrist and has no calendar to set. The case spans 34.5mm, or 42mm tip to tip across the lugs, with the crystal domed above a smooth bezel, and the crown carries the Omega symbol. The bezel, lugs and bracelet show fine scratches, and the dial has yellow-brown toning at its edge, small spots and faint lines, most visible toward the upper right.
Turned slowly under a window light, the dial lives up to its second name: band by band, the curtain seems to draw and open.
