WATCH by John DeVore | The Occasional Magazine

Part-Time Audiophile

[Editor: We are re-posting John DeVore’s column from The Occasional No. 6 on the Part-Time Audiophile website. To read the original article and other great content from The Occasional, click here.} Omega’s Innovative Followup to the Moonwatch, Part One By John DeVore In my last article, I followed the participants in a race to build the world’s first automatic winding chronograph watch. By the end of 1969 three of these types of watches had made it to market, those using the Cal. 6139 [footnote 1] from Seiko, the Cal. 11 from the Chronomatic Group, and the Cal. 3019 PCH “El Primero” from Zenith. Omega and Rolex, two of the most prominent makers of tool-watches in Switzerland at the time, didn’t even participate in that race. Rolex, a very conservative manufacturer, was not interested in such a race-to-market. As I mentioned in that previous article it took Rolex two more decades to update their Daytona chronograph with an automatic movement and they used the Zenith “El Primero” to do it. Omega was working to capitalize on what would be a tremendous marketing opportunity when Buzz Aldrin stepped foot on the moon wearing the only chronograph watch to be certified by NASA […]

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