aroma
521
Omega Chronostop
OK, continuing with my small collection of vintage Omegas - my Omega Chronostop (145.007).
This one dates from ~1969 and therefore just fits in with my idea of vintage (pre 1970). The Chronostops were introduced in 1966 and ran for only 4 years until 1970. They came in two flavours - the 41mm dia Seamaster and the 35mm dia Geneve - both used a special movement, the manual wind, 17 jewel, 21,600bph, cal 865 (no date) and the similar 920 (with date). I believe the larger Seamaster Chronostops used only the cal 865. There were just 124,000 cal 865s produced and another 61,000 cal 920s. How many of the 124,000 were Seamasters, I just don't know. Anyway, you don't see a lot of either of them around now. They were introduced to mark Omega being given 'Official Timekeeper' status at the 1968 Mexico Olympics and were really a bit of an odd ball from the start - they were merely a 1/5 second stopwatch with no facility for counting more than one minute. The Seamaster Chronostop had a greater water resistance (120m) than the Geneve, and thus could be used as a diver's watch - some were even calibrated for use as Yacht Racing.
I was very lucky to happen across this one - most you see are extremely battered or have been polished to within an inch of their lives. This one is in remarkable condition - the beveled edge of the case is polished and the rest is satin and this watch still retains that (see below).
Most of the over polished ones loose the satin finish and are polished all over.
There was a special 'Italian' version (146.012) with a completely different case shape but for some reason, it is not recognised by the Omega vintage database
Anyway that's enough from me - I hope this hasn't been done before
BFN
