Thrasher’s Watch Lounge.

The Omega De Ville watches, introduced firstly in 1960 by the watchmaking company, have been in the market as one of the highly popular collections of Omega. The prime attraction of the De Ville watch is the new revolutionary Co-Axial escapement developed brilliantly by Dr. George Daniels. The co-axial escapement is continuously improved to reduce the impulse friction and hence the major improvements in accuracy and reliability could be achieved.

Many of the Omega De Ville watches have the Co-Axial escapement in it in contemporary designs and models. One of the popular model known as the Omega De Ville Co-Axial Rattrapante has two innovative mechanisms which can measure the time period of two different events. The Omega De Ville Co-Axial Chronoscope, another favorite in the market comes with an exceptional dial consisting of three overlapping sub-dials showing 30-minute, 12-hour and seconds counters. Omega De Ville Hour Vision Annual Calendar, also using the Co-Axial escapement, is attractive with dial displaying the date and month. The added capability of identifying the 30 and 31-day months of this model is praise worthy. This feature makes it advantageous and this timepiece requires manual correction only once in a year.

The Omega De Ville Co-Axial Chronometer with only basic functions is different from the above models. This timepiece displays mainly the basic functions like the date, hours, minutes and seconds. This is very simple and looks classic. It is perfectly ideal for those who like simplicity. The De Ville Co Axial Chronograph with the Co-axial escapement is a finer version of the De Ville Chronometer. The free sprung balance in the Omega De Ville Co-Axial watches assures the reliability and precision.

Omega is a famous watchmaker that made chronographs since 1912. In 1932 it began to buy the “ébauches” (or ready movements) from Lemania, at the Lake Geneva. From 1957 Omega made the chronograph caliber 321. It was the evolution of Caliber 27 CHRO C12, also called Lemania 2310, or Omega 321 the “Speedmaster”. This was the very first momvement that was tested by the NASA labolatories and which and was reported to had an “unbelievable results” and caused Omega to be chosen as the official watch of the astronauts in 1965. Since than the Speedmaster received a nickname “Professional”. In 1968 the manufacture of famous caliber 321 was canceled, being replaced by new smaller caliber 861. It had a newly developed cutting edge sturdy control lever caliber in the Landeron style (without column wheel from caliber 321), glycidur balance, eccentric fine regulation, a frequency of 21,600 half oscillations per hour (instead of the previous 18,000).

This watch Neil Armstrong was wearing when he landed July 21st, 1969 on the moon, other time he was fit with the “new” little tested 861 caliber. I tend to believe NASA used the already tested 321 and 861 calibers in Apollo missions. NASA references are contradictory. The “Speedmaster Professional” was part of 50 space missions, including 6 moon landings. In the later missions it is certain that the “Speedmaster Professional” was fitted with the caliber 861, so probably both 321 and 861 have been on the moon.

The NASA/Omega relationship in 70’s was increasing. In 1978 NASA/Omega was testing even more various watches and the Omega was chosen once more to be the official astronaut’s watch. In the early 1970’s the “Speedmaster Professional” was offered for the first time with an automatic movement, using the jointly developed Omega/Lemania caliber 1040, 31mm diameter, day.

In 1973 Omega made a special 125th anniversary Edition of the Omega Speedmaster Professional, which was called “Omega Speedmaster 125″. It used caliber Omega 1041, which was the Omega cal. 1040 with an Official Chronometer Certificate. Its dial layout was also somewhat different: it had a central minute register, day window at 3 o’clock, subsidiary dial for hour registry at 6 o’clock, 24 hour indication inside the subsidiary seconds dial at 9 o’clock. It was adjusted in 5 positions and 5 temperatures and had a different waterproof case, of the “plug” type. Some sources report that only 1,000 watches of this special edition were made. In 1975 they offered Omega caliber 1045, the same as 1040 with day/date. This ended the period of Omega/Lemania movements that started in 1932.