It came from outer space...

[JoJo35]

The first true great step forward for the commercialization of electronic watch technology came in the form of the Accutron 214, pioneered and designed by Max Hertzel at Bulova. This was an enormous leap in the philosophy and technology of watch movements. Using a tuning fork to deliver the base frequency of the movement and also further utilizing the tuning fork’s vibration to provide the motive power for the hands.

Hertzel continued to refine his design until in 1969 he released the 9162 movement, to give it its official ESA (Ebauche Société Anonyme) nomenclature. The 9162 is a typical ‘Hummer’ in that it utilizes a tuning fork to provide both the timing and the movement’s motive power, however the 9162’s tuning fork is counter-balanced, and mounted, so that it vibrates around its centre as opposed to one end and is therefore immune to positional errors. This refinement earned the ESA 9162 it’s Chronometer rating and even today these movements can outperform the majority, and be matched only, by the best built and adjusted mechanical movements.

Like many electronic movements of the era, the 9162 was built using true watchmakers principles. The construction utilizes brass plates, the gears are quality machined steel and glide on jewels. It would be easy to dispense with this movement by confusing it with more often encountered modern quartz movements made of plastic, but that would be a disservice. After 30+ years (almost forty in this case) many of these movements are still giving their owners the same great service they did when new.

It became obvious to all the watch manufacturers that the future lay in these highly accurate modern electronic movements. In order to keep up with the times, Omega (lacking their own in house experience of electronic movements) adopted ESA’s 9162 movement and re-badged it as their own calibre 1250 movement.

Omega created a range of watches for this new movement that would be named ‘f300’ due to the 300hz frequency of the movement’s vibration. By the mid 1970’s Omega was at the forefront of oscillator based watch technology having advanced from the f300 through to the MegaQuartz line. Along the way upping the frequency from 300hz to 720khz using mechanical tuning forks and onwards from 32khz to 2.4Mhz with quartz. The move into the quartz revolution heralded the start of a tough time for the Swiss manufactures. After the initial years of excitement during the early 1980’s, they were fast facing extinction due to the importation of cheap mass produced battery powered watches from the new wave of technology competent Asian suppliers.

The Omega f300’s are very much ‘hummers’. Holding any of the watches from the range to your ear, you can hear the 300Hz ‘hum’. One characteristic differentiates all hummers from watches with other movements and that is the continuous sweep motion of the second hand. It does not tick like a quartz watch and does not “rock sweep” like a mechanical watch, instead it glides around the dial and is often referred to as ‘captivating’ on first encounter. These watches keep excellent time and, as mentioned above, are easily tuned to keep time well within the limits of the official Chronometer rating of +/-8sec/day and in fact typically show an error of less than a few seconds per week.

This particular watch, designed very much in the post-modern world of the cold war and the space race, clearly expressed the designer's futuristic vision. The f300 movement is unlike any seen either before or since, and the smooth glide of the second hand is truly hypnotic.

[StormTooper4]

That really is the King of bezels , pretty cool bit of electronic history you've got there

[redwatch]

Wow Jojo! Thanks for that posting. I had never heard of that before. So how rare are these guys?

[Demsey]

Man, now you're just plain scaring me.

[vlydog]

Sweet!!!

Wish I could see the glide.

[dluddy]

Outstanding JoJo. Where did you source that gem?

[redwatch]

There's one here on the bay

[JoJo35]

Thanks everyone for your kind comments. Red, because of their age, these pieces are becoming harder and harder to find. In this condition however, nearly impossible to find. D, I'd love to tell you where I've found all these gems, but you know what they say, if I told you I'd have to...

[vlydog]

Stephane's suit at the Waldorf?