Omega

As with any model - even limited editions - an inventory of parts is produced to service the watch.  One possibility is that it is indeed a service replacement dial.  Another possibility is that it is a reject from the dial maker that has somehow made its way out of the reject box.  

It is recorded that a former prototype maker for Omega, John-Pierre Mathey-Claudet, was the person commissioned to produce the dials for the Cross of Merit, but he would have been supplied with blanks upon which to produce the coloured design. The dial maker made the dial blanks with the reverse embossed Olympic Cross motif. Then the Chinese/Japanese lacquering process would be undertaken by Mathey-Claudette. The layers of dial ground would be built up layer by layer, and that's possibly a clue, because I'm not sure your dial is Chinese lacquer. After the lacquer build-up, M-C would  render the outlines of the motif in gold.  The last part of the process would be the produce either the multi-coloured or red Olympic rings.  The possible clue is that if the dial is not Chinese lacquer, then it may never have reached M-C and that leads me to the following. 

Gerald Genta told me some years ago when I put some questions to him about his time at Omega in the later Fifties and early Sixties that until the late 1950s watch case and dial design was a fairly laissez faire process, with suppliers providing a range of examples made up to reflect their current ideas and Omega's head of the Design Depart, Pierre Moinat, and other executives making a choice from available designs. So it is conceivable that your dial could be one of several examples produced for approval but rejected.  So it could be one of the 'mock ups' or samples produced before the choice was made to go for the dial with the coffin markers. 

 But how it got into your watch I think will remain a mystery.  About ten years ago, a Swiss merchant was selling real, but imperfect Omega dials for Constellations and other models. Some had damaged or missing dial feet and others had other, sometimes almost imperceptible, flaws.  I remember emailing him and asking how he came to have these dials and he refused to answer.  I suspect they may have found their way out the back door of either Omega or a defunct dial maker. So, your dial may have come from a similar source.

We'd need to see bigger pics of the dial to ascertain whether the dial is indeed painted and not lacquered, but the chafe marks at six o'clock seem to show a thin painted layer and not a thicker Chinese lacquering process.  But it's worth investigating, if only to feed Erich's and my curiosity    I think that out of all the possible explanations the idea that this was a sample is the most plausible, even though it may never been proved.

Regards

Desmond  

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