Had a new addition to the constellation collection today. It finally came in!! So I figured to take them out of the dusty old watch box for a picture.

New girl in town is an Omega F300hz 'Hummer' Constellation ref. 198.0034. I spent a few hours using Polywatch to take out scratches and she looks brand spankin' new. They really don't make watches like this anymore. Makes me wish I was alive in the 70's. Here she is:



And the 'stars aligning':



Next that I'll be looking for is a 2943 with arrowheads and crosshairs! Cheers.

 

Congrats @Anj , it’s lovely and an awesome addition to your collection. Now go get yourself a white leisure suit and a disco ball!

 

Beautiful watch!

The Ladies agree:

 

Bit of trivia for you on the 198.0034 hummer. Under the lug is printed the phrase 'plaque L80', this is the thickness in microns of the gold plate. This is very think for a plated watch and they can actually stand a bit of mild refinishing without breaking through. Its not as thick as gold capped but for plate it is pretty good so you wont get brassing through it. Plated watches are usually of the order of 10 microns, perhaps the technique was new at the turn of the 1970s so they laid it on with a trowel.

 

Thanks guys. I'll be replacing the strap with leather, I wonder what would be a good match with it? Perhaps a dark blue strap to match the dial?

Also, that's a good bit of trivia. I took off the strap and I was wondering what the Plaque L 80 meant. Guessing it would be 8 times thicker as the usual gold plated watch since it's usually 10 microns? Cheers.

 

I think a dark blue band would look pretty sharp on it.

 

Electroplating is a pretty old technique

 

Sure but not for Omega. AFAIK prior to then they were capping. They could have gone thin but chose not to.

 

...Why would adopting a new technique cause them to put on a thicker layer then? Also, even if Omega had only just adopted the method, they were hardly operating on uncertain territory - it's a 150+ years old technique that had been widely used in the industry, using basic principles of chemistry on materials they are proficient at working with.

It's a moot point though, as electroplating had been used by Omega prior to WW2.

 

Nice watch !

 

Fine, whatever. You would presumably agree though that the 80 microns used here and on a few other select pieces of the era is rather thicker than normal industry practice and certainly thicker than Omega used on subsequent 70s and 80s models? It was for that reason I speculated.

 

Yeah I was too gruff, sorry about that @padders

 

And I was too slapdash in my supposition so lets shake and move on. Its not a bad thing to be pulled up on absent minded thinking sometimes.

 

Now if only our global leaders and elected officials could take a page from OF on the art of discourse and reconciliation- the world would be a kinder gentler place

 

Shut up noob.

 

Be careful with that guy JW, he can literally park tanks on your lawn...

 

lol!!!