It’s been a long, long time since I posted on the forum, I still lurk a lot but family commitments, work commitments and other commitments have kept me busy. Anyway, as those of you who know me know I have pretty eclectic taste when it comes to watches, but it seldom deviates from Omega as a brand, my collection has reduced over the years, from circa 50 watches down to about 15, they range from Speedies, the Marine Chronometers with a split of quartz and mechanical. I don’t buy with the ferocity I used to and have long since calmed down my buy/ flip, buy/flip mentality.
Anyway, one of the watches I owned and regretted selling was my steel and gold Omega ‘Plongeur de Luxe’ Mayol. I let my bi-metal one go sometime ago and instantly regretted it, it was one of the only watches I really regretted selling.
Markets and collectability have changes a lot over the last few year, supply of ‘great buy’ watches has dried up from the usual sources such as eBay and even watch fairs seem to have little supply of quality stuff. That mixed with the growing desirability of watch collecting and the birth of a vast array of ‘know it all’ watch enthusiasts, plus the massive trend of people using them as investment commodity put me off buying stuff for quite some time.
Unlike many uneducated ‘collectors’ I have no issue with Quartz watches, especially those from the early days of quartz and even now many companies like Seiko make some amazing quartz pieces. I have long loved early Omega Quartz but again the supply of Megaquartz’s has both dried up and becoming increasingly challenging to maintain so getting good ones is much more costly.
My primary driver in collecting is not going with the flow (although I own Speedies, Seamaster and the usual stuff), I am more interested in buy quirky or more uncommon pieces.
So, fast forward to the last few months, I decided I wanted a couple of new watches, I started looking, maybe its because I am now the wrong side of 40, maybe my tastes have changed but I found myself drawn away from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s Omega and started to look at the 80’s stuff.
Now, I accept that the 80’s really was the dark days for Omega, they really were at rock bottom and whilst design remained innovative, quality really suffered and the stuff they were churning out by about 1985 was really not the best. Some of the innovation and design from Omega in the early 1980’s was really superb, a smattering of Genta designed piece, innovations such as the ultra things and the early 1980’s ‘dress/divers’ watches. I have moved past (mostly ha ha) wearing house bricks on my wrist and favour much more understated watches. Plus I like to wear things that aren’t noticeably ‘desirable’ due to the significant increase in watch related thefts and muggings.
I saw the forum write up on the Mayol (a great piece) and it got me thinking……… 1337 movement, a great and true ‘quality’ Omega quartz movement, properly made and although not easy to work on, is still maintained by Omega and parts still available!
Whilst scouring eBay I got lucky, I saw a minty bi-metal SM120M ‘Mayol’ in Germany, craps pics, wrong set with later box and papers BUT looked super sharp with red dot case seal. I snapped it up, it arrived and it was better than the pics, unpolished, barely worn! It had clearly been serviced in the past, for some reason it had a very light scratch on the dial. I called STS and sent the watch to them, no case work but they managed to source me a NOS tritium dial from Omega and serviced it, its back with me and fully waterproof.
Then, two months later a totally NOS/ unworn example came up in the USA, again I managed to snap it up for a song.
Then a few days later I missed another 1337 gem, an as NOS back Calypso (even has its red case dot)! By chance it re appeared and after a couple of weeks of sensible negotiation with the seller I bagged it for a very reasonable price, minus its original SS mesh (which I don’t feel suits the watch anyway). Really pleased with all three!
Not everyone’s cup of tea but the Mayol especially is now starting to be appreciated as a collectors piece, although if you want one find a good one as SS Bezel’s particularly are NLA. Bezels on these (as you will see from the write up) are easily damaged as they are sapphire crystal, very hard to scratch but chip and crack if dropped.
I think both watches are under appreciated still and long may that continue.
Here they are and I am very pleased with all three, the NOS Mayol will not really get worn much but the other two are current daily wearers on rotation
