Omega 17''' LOC

Description

It’s difficult to definitively identify this Omega savonette pocket watch movement; the most likely caliber designation is Omega 17’’’ LOC.

As the designation suggests, it’s a 17-ligne movement that impresses with its high-quality craftsmanship.

The brass-colored mainplate, with its numerous jewel bearings, already reveals that this is a “better” movement; the balance wheel bearing, which is secured with two screws by the factory, is particularly interesting.

The gear train is of classic design, with a mainspring barrel, central minute wheel, third wheel, decentral seconds wheel, and a delicate steel escape wheel into which a Swiss pallet lever engages.

All the wheels are very finely crafted; the escape wheel, in particular, has wafer-thin spokes, and movement-side their pivots are all beared in double-screwed chatons (the minute wheel bearing even triple-screwed).

The balance wheel is certainly the highlight of this movement. It is a bimetallic screw balance equipped with a Breguet overcoil, which can be precisely adjusted to the 18,000 A/h at which this movement operates using a swan-neck fine adjustment mechanism.

The dial side looks considerably more mundane, but the yoke winding mechanism is interesting, because it not only moves the Breguet pinion, but also simultaneously disengages the setting wheel and re-engages it when the hands are set. Such a mechanism is rare!

Technical data