Omega

Now lets’ study this peculiar watch in more details...

Here’s my ex example of the ck2990 Ranchero. You see that the 36mm case is quite flat and the large dial makes the watch look reasonable large. The dial definitely looks similar to the Seamaster, Railmaster and Speedmaster from the 1950’s, while the case is more like a “normal” Omega from the 1950’s.

The crown has an unusual shape and is different from the other sports models. Again, it looks more like a crown of a regular Seamaster, or a dress watch.

The caseback is a snap-on type and has a specific “waterproof” engraving. Again, this is completely different from the sports models and you understand what makes the watch the entry level model as it is probably much less waterproof than the Railmaster, Speedmaster and of course Seamaster.

The movement is the Omega manual wound cal. 267 with 17 jewels that was created in 1956 and whose diameter is 30mm (hence the printing on the Ranchero dial)

No doubt, with suc a dial, the watch looks really great in the sun !

As you can see on the next picture, the Extract from the Records sent by the Omega Museum states that my watch was sold in Italy in 1959.

Here’s an extract from the first 1959 catalog. You can see that the Ranchero was the least expensive watch listed and came in both regular (sub second) and sweep second versions.

Beside the stainless steel model, there are some quite surprising variations of the Ranchero.

Here’s a white dial 2990-1 that was bought by a fellow Purist some years ago

omega.watchprosite.com

here are a couple of gold capped models with different dials

(credit: Omegaforum)

So there's definitely a Ranchero variation for every Omega collector !