This one will be here long after I'm gone..

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It's about 2:20pm right now as just read from this Omega "trench-watch" dated over a hundred years old.




Incredible Enamel dial, original nickeloid casing- a transitional watch for a transitional time - 1916. Nascent industries were forming. Technologies beginning their races toward the future. Today we are living in the dreams of their tomorrow. Back then, the war was in the news and in people's hearts and minds at the time. When I saw this watch I wasn't looking for it - but when I saw it- I wanted to understand it. I started researching and the more I read the more I saw it as a reflection of the times in which it was made.

Wrist watches were still uncommon in this period, most companies producing portable watches were making pocket watches and small batches of wristlets for ladies but with the of need of precision timing to execute rapidly advancing warfare technology and the rigors of trench battle, the functionality of wristwatches began to supplant pocket timers and quickly the form and function began to bleed into the fashion of the era, eventually bring us to a time now when pocket watches are antiquated, and wrist watches are moving towards more than telling time including real time communication, gps, complex computational functionality, music player, etc.

This watch survived all those years? That's pretty damn lucky. Look at this Ad here thanks to @Tire-comedon for posting.




They were marketed to soldiers on the frontlines, and to citizens on the streets. This watch, a caliber 13" sb, blurring the lines between pocket and wrist, re-engaged by Omega into a formative wristwatch as the company was experimenting for the changing needs of the world. It's a symbol of transition, when the world was moving on to a future where the only thing certain was time and that with it- the world was changing.

It is now 11:37am the next day as I'm getting around to sending this post out to all of you. Remarkably, this 100-year-old is keeping the time so far- accurately.

Thanks to @Vintage for the watch and @adam78 for some of his input.
 
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Classy watch, I like the words on transition, maybe thats what this is all about, I mean the interest for vintage timepieces and all. Of course technology is a driving force but also other factors must influence the watch world.
 
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Very beautiful watch and that dial with the twelve and twenty four hour markers WOW....
 
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Excellent post, you make a very good description of the change from pocket watches to wrist watches.
The first pocket watch was made by Peter Henlein in 1505, the Pomander watch.


300 years later, English watchmakers make some of the most robust and well made pocket watches, but except for 3 century of impressive improvements, nothing really change so much.


Omega made the first minute repeating wristwatch in 1892, starting the change of the way we use the watch till now
You don't have only a early Omega wrist watch, is an example, a milestone of the constant reinvention of the human being.