Newbie to the forums but a long time owner of several new and vintage Speedmasters.

Anyway, I came across this Constellation today and wondered whether anyone knew much about this or had one themselves?
Clearly it is a Megaquartz 32 Khz but other than that my knowledge is very limited - not seen many gold or gold plated... The date on the back would indicate that it is from 1977 and a random Google search suggests that the original recipient of the watch may have been a Swiss scientist given that there seem to be some patents in his name - not sure what his link is with Omega?

Thanks to anyone who can shed any light!

 

Very indeed, thanks for sharing, I'm a big fan of these 1310 TV Connies and own a couple of them, both SS on bracelet, creem dial and slate dial.

I'm aware of two other versions :
- All Gold on bracelet (featured in AVTT and at the museum in Bienne)
- two tone with SG bezel and SG center links

So yours is a new variation!

 

Thanks webvan / gatorcpa for your comments.

I think the style of the 1310 TV Connies is great. This one certainly seems to be a rare example, I also can't see any others just like it out there, although the price is possibly a little steep...

 

Omega made about 300 of these in 18K gold, most famously given to the Apollo Soyez team and still worn to this day by Major General Alexey Leonov, Russian Cosmonaut

http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/the-story-of-two-astronauts-and-their-omegas-as-seen-in-sochi

They are getting quite rare now and this is a nice example! Let remember that when new these were absolute flagship watches and 18K gold examples where so outrageously expensive (only surpassed by the 18K Stardust) that you could easily buy a nice sports car for the same cash

 

Thanks for the link and for sharing your knowledge - much appreciated.


Having mulled it over the weekend, I went to see it in the metal today. Moved the price down a little and am now the proud owner - couldn't resist! Fantastic condition, a good weight to it given the solid gold and comes with all the original spare parts, too.

2 jobs left for me now: i) find out who exactly was Jean-Claude Jaquet and ii) track down a gold strap just like those on Cosmonaut Leonov's example...!

 

Well done! Could you weigh it when you get a chance? It seems it came with a "Certificate of High Precision", does it have any specific information on the watch other than the movement number on the back?

I wonder whey Hodinkee say only 5 of these watches were made, seems very little, maybe for the all gold version ? On the other hand they rarely pop up...

 

Great catch, well done

Highly unlikely you will find a bracelet as they where made specifically for these watches by Fontana in Italy and have never been available separately, the factory do not have any in stock (even their secret stock). The bracelets do not age well as the 18K interlinks loosen up and the bracelets become baggy

Unless you are Alexey Leonov I think its highly unlikely you will ever get a spare ;-)

 

Hodinkee are wrong, between 200 and 250 made, 25 given to Soyez crew and staff and the rest remained in the Omega line up, I have a couple of 70's brochures showing them for sale

 

That makes more sense.

Any luck finding out who Jean-Claude Jaquet was? Looks he might have worked for Omega, in which case Marco Richon would certainly know him. Have you had a chance to weigh the watch?

 

I have done some desktop research on Jean-Claude since my original post. My best guess is that he was a scientist / metallurgist who worked with Omega as there are a good number of 1970s / 1980s patents in his name which involve techniques for working with metals and watches / bracelets. It seems to be the most logical connection to the name I can find (I may be completely wrong of course!!).
Here is an example patent:

https://www.google.com/patents/EP01...a=X&ei=0EBzVKfrNoH68QXsi4D4Dw&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBw

https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=pts&hl=en&q=ininventor:"Jean-Claude+Jaquet"&gws_rd=ssl

Unfortunately I don't have any good scales to hand but the scales in the mail room in my office record a weight of 0.10kg with the croc strap, but I will repost once I find more accurate scales that cover grammes!

 

Well done, weird that he "invented" the "Bracelet with articulated links" ! These things can get so specific it's amazing.

It's good that you're wearing that watch, it's certainly a little bit more "office compatible" than my rather large 1510 MQ Stardust with the same bracelet and that sits in the safe at the bank ;-) Looking at my notes it appears it weighs 128 grams, including 28 for back alone.

 

Nice work, Webvan that just mean mentioning the 18K stardust, it still pains me I missed that one, although I am please it went to you

 

Howdie! I was googling about a watch my dad just gave to me and stumbled upon this post. Its a real one, he bought it on the 70s and the date is in Spanish. Are you saying this is one of only 500 ever made? Condition is good and functioning, obviously with some scratches after all these years, but nothing that cannot be get ridden of with a slight polish. Bracelet is also in good condition. Any thoughts of this model?

 

Welcome

Yes it is a very rare model, I bought a NOS example, now on display at Omega about three years ago, from memory paid £3000 with bracelet.

They made very few of these as the post indicates, yours looks like a very clean original example

Movement is easy to work on and relatively inexpensive to repair compared to the MQ2.4mhz, cal 1310 can be repaired by a number of specialists!

Hope you are keeping the watch? If not I may be interested! For reference yours is an 18k example with 18k bracelet and dial

 

Thanks! Not even thought of getting rid of it for now, as I didnt even know it was a rare model.
What is a NOS example? And another question... if Omega made just a few of these, how come they bothered in making some with the date in Spanish? I can understand the russian version for the cosmonauts, but Spanish? Why even bother? Thanks for the clarification to a newbie!

 

Good news, I would certainly be keeping it if I were lucky enough to have been passed it down.

Fundamentally they were sales watches however they were so expensive at the time that they sold very few! The cases and bracelets were made at Fontana in Italy alongside the megaquartz f2.4 gold cases!

The Spanish date will simply be because the watch was delivered to spain or a Spanish speaking country originally, or perhaps at some point in its life the date has stopped working and the only one that could be supplied was Spanish

I would advise checking the time keeping, set it against an Internet clock to the second and then time it over a few days. These watches were and still should be accurate to 5 second per month, if it is deviating significantly from this it probably needs a service, but servicing and repairing the cal 1310 (the movement in your watch) is relatively inexpensive.

Hope this helps

Thanks Tom

 

Thanks for all the info. I have more background about it. The watch was acquired by a jewlery in Leon, Spain, in the 70s. The jewlery owner went to Switzerland to attend a watch fair and came back with it. My dad, a doctor in Leon, bought it from him.
The date is original and is in spanish. I dont know if the jewlery owner got it replaced before purchasing or if it was directly available as an option.
The watch works flawlessly, I have not checked the 5 second accuracy, but I would bet it is within that range.

On other side of things, back in Spain (I am living in Chile) I have two other Omegas. One of them is really old, a vintage square with roman numbers, looks to me from the early 1900s, I got it from my grandad and it originally belonged to my great grandad. The other is newer, a gold Omega really flat, from the 50s or 60s. I will post some pictures here as soon as I get my hands on them when I go back to Spain for vacation next month, to see if you all can help me gather some info, specially on the first (really old) Omega.

Thanks

 

Hello great post, I just got my dad’s Omega Constellation this Christmas from my mom, he pass away in 1980 and the watch has been sitting in a box since. It has the original gold band and it was worn every day, the back plate doesn’t have the observatory, my dad traveled all over Europe and North America and had an office in Ireland and Canada. So I do not know where he bought it.