Don't miss the next drop
Omega’s 1960 international collection included two stainless steel automatics with reference numbers six apart and the same movement inside. CK 14755 was the Seamaster 300, a diver with a rotating bezel and a 200-meter rating. CK 14761 took that caliber 552 and put it in a round case with a smooth bezel and a dial that shows the time and nothing else. This is the second of the pair, an Omega Seamaster 14761 from 1961.
Its lugs are why the title calls it beefy. They leave the case long and broad, then bend down toward the strap, so a 34mm watch spans 42mm from tip to tip. From the side, the case steps in beneath the bezel and the crystal rises in a domed arc above it, and the crown carries the Omega symbol. That side angle is our favorite view of this watch: the steel gives a modest diameter the kind of weight a modern watch gets from extra millimeters.
The white dial is signed with an applied Omega symbol, the OMEGA name, AUTOMATIC and Seamaster in script. The 14761 was made with hand-riveted index markers and dauphine hands, and the faceted batons catch light as the watch turns. With no date window, the ring of markers runs unbroken around the dial. Fine speckling and some darker toning along the hands and markers are visible up close.
The screw-down back carries the Seamaster medallion on its outside: a seahorse ringed by the SEAMASTER name and the Omega symbol. Omega began putting the seahorse on Seamaster backs around 1958 as its sign of a water-resistant case, so the emblem was only a few years old when this one was made.
Inside, the steel is stamped with the reference and the letters SC, marking a case made for a center-seconds movement. The 552 is exactly that: the 24-jewel member of the 550 family Omega launched in the late 1950s, with its seconds hand turning from the middle of the dial. A full rotor winds the mainspring as the wearer moves. On this example the rotor is signed, and the bridge is stamped with its serial and the number 552, the movement that also ran the Seamaster 300.
