The 165.024 is the Seamaster 300 most people mean by the name: the 42 mm asymmetric case, the thick bezel graduated to a full sixty minutes, straight sword hands, caliber 552. Introduced in the early renumbering years, sources put the start at 1963 or 1964, it ran to the turn of the 1970s and became the template every modern Seamaster 300 reissue copies. The collector literature tracks its production minutiae to a degree the file can only admire: two case suppliers across the run, Huguenin and then La Centrale, a steel changeover, and casebacks that sometimes omit the dot in 165 024, details that separate honest cases from married ones.
Its market problem is success. Because the reference is valuable and its parts interchange easily with lesser Seamasters of the era, redials, relumes, and service bezels are everywhere, and a large share of examples offered as original are period-correct assemblies at best. The dial printing, the lume's age against the hands, and the bezel font are where the examination happens.
The definitive vintage Seamaster and the most rebuilt one. Original dials and honest lume carry the value; service dials are fine watches at a different price. On this reference, provenance and clear movement and caseback photos are not optional extras.
Production windows and specifications compiled from documented collector references and period catalogs, cross-checked across independent sources; manufacturer records for this era are approximate by Seiko's own account.