Omega

chippyfly
674

• Show profile
• Show other posts

Another vintage pocket watch

Anecdotes that accompany vintage watches enhance their collecting.  I share another rather long one with purists here.

Jane (not her real name) is an elderly widow and long time friend and past work-colleague of my partner.  Two weeks ago they had lunch together where the Omega pocket watch below was passed to my partner with the request I should “get it going again as she did not know how”.  Jane also wants to know what she should do with the watch.

Jane’s late husband Omar (also not his real name) was born in Persia and they lived and brought up their family in what became Iran.  In academia, they were comfortably well-off owning property in Iran and one in the UK.  Towards the end of 1970’s Iran’s leaders became very unwelcoming towards Omar, his colleagues and many others.  Omar feared his likely summary imprisonment and much worse in Iran’s then deteriorating political climate and turmoil.

Jane and their children managed to travel to the UK and settle here in what became their new home, which was where Jane found work and met my partner.  Omar eventually escaped Iran, joined his family and became a UK university lecturer.  Everything they owned in Iran was necessarily abandoned (confiscated) apart from what little that was able to be smuggled to the UK.  In his retirement, lovely man Omar died a couple of years ago.

This was Omar’s daily watch, brought with him to the UK long ago.  The attached short gold chain was adapted by a jeweller into an Albert (without a “T” bar) to attach to Omar’s jacket lapel buttonhole for his top pocket.  The chain is hallmarked 750 with an Iranian script, which I assume was the jeweller’s signature.  A bit OTT for a steel watch in my view but if you need to carry something of value, why not an innocuous gold chain?

Never seeing such a fine pocket watch before I did some research.  I found three examples on the internet sold and for sale.  Steel case reference ST 111.1738 dating from 1970’s 50.5 x 35.5mm.  Omega signed acrylic crystal.  Calibre 601 inside, adjusted for two positions with a fine timing regulator.  PR 48 hours.  The watch is working well, gaining about half a minute per day.

On my Timegrapher, frequency 19,800, average over 5 positions: beat error 0.23m/s, amplitude 175º and rate of approximately +20 seconds/day.  Probably needs a service and the last one is not known when.  I have not opened the case where the watch is working and I do not have Jane’s permission yet.

The grey striped dial is beautiful.  The worn case has been through a turbulent life.

HAGWE!

Clive

Site Info.