Speedmaster silver hands needed

[speedycosmograph]

New to your forum here and need some hands. I am swapping a "panda" dial from a 35th anniversary Speedmaster to a 145.022 cal 861 pro. Ofrei has no hour recorder subdial hand in silver. I have or can get all others. Any help available?

[~dadam02~]

Same situation as me and my white dial arrived today from watchco.

Anyone know of another source please let us know.

[benjaminchoe]

Almost impossible to find until Ofrei gets them back in stock. I called Ofrei twice, checked 2 local Omega dealers, emailed WatchCo, and emailed Watchadoo to source these hands. Watchadoo was able to find one set of silver small hands in stock which I purchased last week (I wanted to buy the entire 6 piece hand set, but this is all he had left). I purchased the panda dial and the 3 larger silver hands directly from Ofrei. You may want to email Watchadoo (ebay name) and ask him. He told me he could put in an order to get them but it would take around 5 weeks. The only bad part is Ofrei might have them back in stock by then. Ofrei says they get a new Omega shipment 4-8 weeks and it has already been about 4 weeks since they have been out of stock, but I guess nothing is certain.

[speedycosmograph]

There must be quite a few people converting their pros to pandas these days. I'm not surprised given how attractive the dial is...and how much it resembles the Paul Newman Daytona. OFrei told me they have been out of the hour hand since March, and they don't seem very confident in having more any time soon. I hope that is not correct, but I am left with decisions. I have seen many different looks used with the panda dial, and I suppose given that once you accept you do not have a real 35th anniversary watch or the Japanese limited ed., why feel restricted by those configurations? The most common change I see is using white hands for the subdials, which would be an easy fix for me, given that I have at least one set of those, but in my opinion, the white hands grab the eye and take too much attention from the rest of the dial. I did see one version where the silver hands were used and painted white except for the hubs. That was a nice look and much less distracting with less white. I found that stripping white hands leaves a bare metal hand but one that is far from polished. My solution will be to use the sub hands from a 2915 in silver, at least until I can get the standard hands from OFrei. I've seen a lot of experimenting with sweep seconds hands, too, and most all of them look nice, but I'll stay with the standard pro hand in silver w/the lum. Again, once the watch has been modified, they should be whatever the owner wants, right? I find the 2915 style sub dial hands to be as attractive...just not typical for the style of hour/min hands. At least they will be silver and should be less eye-catching. The bottom line: I have the dial and larger hands...and a just-serviced 145.022 from 1969 (which I kinda like since it matches the date on the dial...my dial is the anniversary ed.) and I am not patient enough to wait for what could be months to put it together. Please update this thread if anyone hears the other hour hand is in stock.

[speedycosmograph]

Oh, and in case anyone is shocked that I would use a 145.022 st 69 for the swap, don't be concerned. I have found that the 69 models are among the most common and least costly. I got this one for about a grand in nice cond. I have the orig. dial and hands and will keep them with the watch in case I or anyone else wants to return it to its orig. state. I think using a 2500 to 3500 dollar 3570 for the mod. is far too expensive when it can be done for much less. My old case has been polished correctly, and it will look nearly new with a new crystal and the rest.

[~dadam02~]

Been speaking to my watchmaker over the weekend who reckons he can make one of the minute register hands fit in the hour hand register. Not sure how I feel about that but I've ordered an extra minute hand and we'll see.

[~dadam02~]

Fill yer boots lads, ofrei have new stock of the hour recorder hand in.