zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

I am always interested in why collectors and enthusiasts first became fascinated by:

1) watches;
2) mechanical watches; and
3) specifically Omega.

I was always interested in watches, and as I came of age in the electronic era, quartz "gadget watches" were some of the first I owned. My family did not have a history of fine mechanical timepieces, so my watch history started with me. The first ones didn't make it out of my teen years and twenties, and in accordance with their cost and the practices of the day, when a battery change didn't fix it, out they went.

Here are two of the watches I have owned the longest. This Seiko is still one of the more practical and attractive of the designs of the late 1980s.

The watch I have owned the longest is the Certina, with a ETA quartz movement still sold today. I purchased this watch in 1982 or 1983, shortly after I got a "real job".

Watches were (and are) the most prominent accessory a man has. Before cell phones had calendar features and before PDAs came on the scene, I went through a couple of watch-based alarm/calendar/reminder/to-do list "solutions". Some were really ugly.

This one was marginally practical and at least wasn't what Chuck Maddox referred to as a "CBP" (cheap black plastic) watch.

Later, I moved to a less arduous entry method. This watch worked with Microsoft Outlook and would download appointments, birthdays, to-dos and contacts by displaying bar codes on the screen. The circular dot on the watch face at 12 is a bar code reader!

Cool technology, but not very efficient and limited. Then I got a cell phone and PDA, then a PDA with a cellphone . . . my wrist was freed up for timekeeping and more traditional looks.

Then I rediscovered mechanicals . . . . and shortly thereafter, vintage, and then chronographs.

I had slept as a child with a Big Ben wind up alarm clock, which was an incredibly loud ticker (and alarm). The sound of a mechanical watch held to my ear brought back a flood of memories. While I still have quartz, mechanicals are my strong preference.

Why Omega? Accessibility and history

1) Omega is accessible because they produced lots of watches for a long time.
2) Omega is accessible because they produced almost every complication and used every technology at some point in their history.
3) Omega is accessible because the watches are among the least expensive for the quality of product.
4) Omega is accessible because there is more information available about vintage Omegas than any brand I know of (despite Jeff Stein's amazing efforts on Heuer).

Few watch companies have the history and often dominance that Omega did for over 160 years.

What watch matched this in the 1950s

and in the 1940s

and there are examples from every decade in the 20th century -- and some from the 19th

Few watch companies produce icons

That has existed for 50 years, with only incremental changes

That's my story . . . . so, the question(s) of the day:

-- why do you like watches?
-- why manuals/automatics/tuning forks/kinetic quartz/quartz, what is your preference?
-- why Omega?

Sam aka Hewybaby