Firstly I'd like to say I'm a relative newbie on the Omega Forum. I'm a regular on The Rolex Forum and Watchuseek. So thank you kindly for any information I can get. My question is: Does anyone have a general idea of the power reserve on a full wind a 1954 Caliber 266 movement has? It has been serviced within the last year. I will enclose a picture of the movement also. Thanks again for your responses. Regards Jason

 

Dr. Ranfft says it should have about a 43 hour reserve:

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&&2uswk&Omega_266

 

Thanks for that info Dennis...

 

You might be a little disappointed if you expect to get 43....Omega calls for the Cal. 266 to have a 32 hour power reserve. I would take the info on his site with a grain of salt...

Now it's not unusual for a well serviced movement in good condition to run longer than the stated power reserve, but not 11 hours longer - unless someone has installed a longer mainspring (non Omega obviously).

Cheers, Al

 

Thanks Al... I've posted this elsewhere also, and that seems to be the general response also. Given the age, and the condition of the mainspring 43 hours seems a bit ambitious. I've given it a full wind, and I'm going to test it. It's not a daily wearer, and yesterday wound the watch around 10-15 full winds and got about 20 hours out of that. Thanks for the info....

 

My 26x and 28x movements take a bit over 30 winds from zilch to fully-wound, and then they run 34 hours or so till they stop.

 

Thx for the response John...

 

Just a quick follow up, a full wind yielded about 36 hours. I'm happy with that, and thank you for your responses. Best Jason

 

Sure... The picture does the watch no justice, it's a real beauty. And the hour markers have a great twinkle when the light hits them on the wrist. Thanks again all.....

 

It's 18kt rose gold...

 

It's a big one, too, isn't it? The cal 266 is fitted with a brass spacer, so I would guess this must be 36mm or more in diameter. A rather special dress watch from the early 1950s with guilloche dial.

 

37mm, is the measurement of the custom case. Case and crown are not Omega...

 

4 hours past the stated reserve is not that unusual - companies tend to err on the shorter side when they state the power reserve.

It could be a non-standard replacement spring inside, and often if someone doesn't have access to genuine parts, or is too cheap to buy genuine parts, they will find something "close" and use that instead. I do this when branded mainsprings are no longer available, usually due to the brand going out of business or having changed hands - an example would be say Bulova - you won't find any newly made Bulova springs for their vintage watches, so it's either NOS or just picking something close.

Nothing really wrong with this approach if the branded spring is not available. Width and strength (thickness) are the key dimensions, and length tends to be the one that can vary the most from the original spring without performance issues.

Anyway, nice watch!

Cheers, Al

 

Great, informative post. Many thanks Al.......

 

knappo1307

A little post-processing on your gold 266 image. Hope you don't mind.

Cheers,

Tony C.

 

Great job, Tony !! Don't mind at all