The general style and the case serial number says late 1940’s to me, but the cal. 352 movement wasn’t introduced until the early 1950’s.
My thought is that this piece was “upgraded” at some point.
gatorcpa
Couldn't it be that in the early 1950s, before 2517, they put this movement in this case and added the Omega Automat dial?
In total, 2517 (1000 pieces) were tested on the chronometer and only after these tests was the chronometer added. Am I somewhat right?
In ref 2577 they put various movements, even with a chronometer certificate, and not every dial talked about it
I’d like to see an example of this please.
Omega charged more for chronometer movements back then. It seems counterintuitive that they would not recognize that on the dial.
gatorcpa
In all Connie references in which the cal 354 movement appears, it is elevated to the status of a chronometer, and in the Seamaster 2577 it is no longer mandatory. Similarly, cal 501 in the Connie 2852 is raised to a chronometer, and in the Seamaster 2848 it is only an automatic
Omega did have two versions of cal. 354 and 501. To my knowledge these are the only Omega movements that had both chronometer and non-chronometer versions.
Why would/should it be?
This may be true for some other ‘detail-obsessed’ brand collectors but not in the Omega world.
(Let’s set Speedmaster variations aside for now)
Omega collectors tend to value anomalies as ‘interesting’ rather than more collectible. (Or more valuable)
In the case of non-chronometer Constellations - a watch is only meant to be a chronometer if it was designated as such and something that was diminished by virtue of corporate financial cost cutting does not make it more desirable no matter how few there are ( unless a collector is trying to plug a hole in an all-encompassing collection)
Well then, let's take Ranchero as an example. The name did not stick and the dial, hands and name (Seamaster) were changed. Just because it retains the Ranchero reference it costs a lot more than the comparable Seamaster