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Beautiful watch, Ive been eyeing up a silver variant of this, not much information online about this watch, is it low maintenance? because I’m trying to get a nice vintage watch where I can daily without the concern of it breaking. Thanks
Beautiful watch, Ive been eyeing up a silver variant of this, not much information online about this watch, is it low maintenance? because I’m trying to get a nice vintage watch where I can daily without the concern of it breaking. Thanks
As nice as these vintage watches are from a technology standpoint, it's at the point of finding watchmakers to work on them are sparce (6 month wait times if you find someone to work it) The parts are hard to come by, etc.
Would stick to mechanical vintage watches if you're looking for a low maintenance everyday watch.
There are some threads if you do a search and a few Google searches will give you plenty of rabbit holes to go down with Accutron, Omega, etc. but a couple of good starting places is this link:
https://electric-watches.co.uk/makers/omega/omega-f300-tuning-fork/
As nice as these vintage watches are from a technology standpoint, it's at the point of finding watchmakers to work on them are sparce (6 month wait times if you find someone to work it) The parts are hard to come by, etc.
Would stick to mechanical vintage watches if you're looking for a low maintenance everyday watch.
There are some threads if you do a search and a few Google searches will give you plenty of rabbit holes to go down with Accutron, Omega, etc. but a couple of good starting places is this link:
https://electric-watches.co.uk/makers/omega/omega-f300-tuning-fork/
That's interesting for me because I was specifically looking for battery powered omegas due to the reputation that quartz have now of just throwing it on without thinking but it never crossed my mind that these 1250 cal movements aren't a very easy to work on, I was actually thinking that it would be way more hassle to be wearing a mechanical watch worrying about shock to the movement and all that stuff. So thank you for that i'll look more into it.
I agree with the trouble finding many parts (coils, index wheel, date disk...) for these movements and the scarcity of watchmakers who work on them. However, I think this issue is reflected on the price to a certain extent. You can find these in good condition for less than $500. If they break one day, they are still worth at least $200 for parts. It's possible to make even more by selling certain parts separately.
Below are the two that I have that are in working condition (too bad they are not synced for the photo). I purchased the black one from another OF member during the last year and serviced it. I bought the gold plated one on eBay as non-working, serviced it and had the case replated. It wasn’t the best economic decision, but I don’t mind spending an extra couple hundred dollars to save a nice looking, not working Omega that could get trashed otherwise, as long as I know that I will wear it occasionally. I have two more ongoing f300 projects that I will update this thread with once they are finished.
It's been a while since I've done a deep dive, but from memory in simple terms, the battery powers the transistors which keep the tuning fork humming which powers the watch. It's a genius design which kept amazingly accurate time within a second a month during the time period when watches were considered good being within seconds a day.
My dad had one for 30 years and just needed a battery replaced once a year. Every watchmaker he took it to was like a kid at Christmas since it was something they read about but rarely see one in the wild. Own quite a few and the hum with the sweeping second hand is mesmerizing when they work.
But once they stop working it costs more in time and labor to have one serviced than to buy a new one. It's a shame really as they have great dials and a neat history.
I'm in Chicagoland.
Nice, I'm in St. Louis. Feel free to message me on who you're going through for service, turnaround times, costs, etc. Really been sitting on mine for years as I've acquired other watches and kind of got the 'out of sight, out of mind'' thing going on. Went from hummers to mechanical and unique dials with my speedies.
It's been a while since I've done a deep dive, but from memory in simple terms, the battery powers the transistors which keep the tuning fork humming which powers the watch. It's a genius design which kept amazingly accurate time within a second a month during the time period when watches were considered good being within seconds a day.
My dad had one for 30 years and just needed a battery replaced once a year. Every watchmaker he took it to was like a kid at Christmas since it was something they read about but rarely see one in the wild. Own quite a few and the hum with the sweeping second hand is mesmerizing when they work.
But once they stop working it costs more in time and labor to have one serviced than to buy a new one. It's a shame really as they have great dials and a neat history.
Looks pretty good to me. Not that common these days. Enjoy it!
