Community Stories

How accurate were watches in the 50's and 60's? How often did people reset their watches?

502 to right
Posts
844
Likes
835
I was wondering this today as I was looking at some vintage Omegas. How accurate were quality watches in the 50's and 60's in seconds +/- per day? Was there a huge difference in accuracy between high end watches of the day (e.g., an Omega Constellation) and run of the mill watches?

And then I started thinking about how often people reset their watches. Was it daily? Weekly?

I've done some light internet research into how people knew the correct time in the 50's and 60's and it sounds like most people would have gone off of a radio station tone at the top of the hour. And some may have had a bell in their town that chimed on the hour. Or people called a telephone number to get the time. This is how I did it in the 70's and 80's.
 
dsio
Posts
33,019
Likes
37,797
The Constellations of that era, along with many other models in smaller numbers were all chronometer rated. COSC specs are -4 to +6, but those watches were pre-COSC and I think the spec at the time was something like a 10 second range in 5 positions still, so quite comparable.

Omega apparently held their chronometers, especially the 55x and 56x too even tighter specs than that, and their run of 100,000 consecutive Cal 561 chronometers in a row tends to indicate that the 551/561 was an inherently very good design, being an evolution of the 50x series that came before it, and Omega's quality control at the time was very tight.

https://omegaforums.net/threads/the-famous-100-000-consecutive-omega-561-chronometers.134173/ Revo
Thread '"The Famous 100,000 Consecutive Omega 561 Chronometers" ??' ·
A recent post on the "~ OMEGA Only ~ | Vintage Omega Watches" facebook group led me to this...
Revo ·

One of the rather nice CK14900 Cal 551 Constellations I wore was in excellent condition, serviced and keep a solid +2 per day on the wrist which is on par with the best modern watches on the market today. Despite all of the new tech like special escapements and composite materials, the ability to make an exceptionally accurate and reliable automatic watch has been well within Omega's ability since that time period 60+ years ago.

The condition and maintenance history of any vintage chronometer is the main determining factor, they're all capable of being as good as anything on the market really.
 
HorsinTime
Posts
60
Likes
89
Yep. Properly serviced and regulated, Omega's best movements (manual and automatic) were and remain extremely accurate. As @dsio says, they'll still keep time with the best of them.
 
sheepdoll
Posts
2,643
Likes
4,218
call POP-CORN (767-2676) Does not seem to work from the cell phone anymore just silence. 1 (515) 767-2676 also now fails with the tone beeps.

Do not have a landline, since it is now fiber and actually VoIP. The fiber modem does power the POTs phone, but fails when the power goes off.

I am surprised how many 561/564 movements I have. Well serial plates. I think 4 of them still tick. Two are origional so are probably the factory parts. The other two are rats made from a mix of what ever scrap parts I can find.

Only done minimal work with the timegrapher. Should use it more. Most of the time I stall out when the watch ticks. While I prefer untangling a hairspring to listing a watch on eBay. Neither is a pleasant task. Regulating a watch risks bunging the hairspring so I tend to be wary when around that part.

There does not seem to be that much difference between a 561/562 under service parts. Same for 564/565. Most of the diffence is in the rotor, which does not really seem to be what affects the timekeeping.

My guess is the movements were statistically graded. Since the markings are on the rotor bridge. Without an EfA who knows what caliber a serial number is supposed to be.

The escapement and balance, will be much of the effect on accuracy. Pivots (end shake) and jewels. Could affect position as well as the poise of the wheels.

From the textbook I have Omega used lasers to regulate the balances. I have not looked to see if I can find the scratch. This was pretty impressive stuff from the 1960s and 1970s when lasers were cutting edge. The scratch was done with a diamond point. Probably in a machine like this.

OmegaTron.webp


Keep thinking it would be fun an a challenge to make such a machine with a moder microcontroller and a simple AI neural net. The scratch should still be there somewhere on the balance. The math behind this is quite old. I think some dates back to the 18th century. Ideas that everything is made of a sum of sin and cos waves. French peasants refusing to be counted, and land owners exaggerating how much land they had.

Suspect a lot of this institutional knowledge has been lost.
 
Sign up or log in to reply...

Similar threads

Aerkuld

How were watches / bracelet / strap combinations originally sold?

Aerkuld Vintage Omega Watches Help, Discussion and Advice
Dan S
Dan S
Posts
8
Views
1K
HNS

How long should Omega watches from the 1990's and 2000's last

HNS Vintage Omega Watches Help, Discussion and Advice
Pvt-Public
Pvt-Public
Posts
29
Views
20K
Anj

How much did Brand New Constellations/Seamasters cost in the 50's and 60's?

Anj Vintage Omega Watches Help, Discussion and Advice
E
eyedoc751
Posts
8
Views
5K