Omega marks first chronograph by rebuilding 105-year-old movements
Hugely ambitious project sees Omega celebrate its first ‘wrist chronograph’ by renewing 18 of the original movements held in it museum vaults for limited edition series.
by James Buttery
Limited editions can often be the laziest of exercises; a change of colour here, a new material there. Omega?s latest, to celebrate the company?s first chronograph wristwatch from 1913, is certainly not that.
The Biel watchmaker has placed the movement behind that original chronograph, the 18 ligne (40mm) CHRO calibre, at the heart of the new watch, completely rebuilding and modernising 18 of the 105-year-old movements to power a run of 18 limited edition chronographs.
The movements were sourced from watches held within Omega?s own museum in Biel, which means they are not some still-packaged New Old Stock (NOS) discovery from the furthest reaches of a remote storeroom, but vintage pieces which have already run for decades. Once removed from their original cases ? something that?s sure to set vintage purists? teeth on edge in itself – the movements were completely refurbished by the watchmakers of Omega?s Atelier Tourbillon high watchmaking department.
Given the decades of use each watch has experienced, each had been rendered unique through wear and tear and had to be treated individually by watchmakers analysing the movements, measuring each component and calculating the necessary refurbishments and replacement parts where necessary. New holes also had to be bor...
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