Maybe new watches aren’t your thing. And that’s perfectly alright – the appeal of vintage watches just can’t be ignored. Owning and wearing a piece of history on your wrist is undeniably poetic. But if the deep world of horology has taught us anything, it’s that there’s always something to be discovered, and those discoveries can be made at all price points. For the first vintage edition of The Value Proposition, we’ll take a look at the Omega Seamaster 30, a quiet mid-century classic that hits the all right notes.
While the Omega Seamaster range was created in 1948, the first Omega Seamaster 30 wasn’t introduced until 1962. The “30” in the model name refers not to the depth of water resistance, but instead to the size of the movement. Omega’s 30mm hand-wound movements proved exceedingly popular and were produced in large quantity in the mid twentieth century, ending with Calibre 269. The first Seamaster 30 watches used Calibre 286 (created in 1961), a 17-jewel movement with 42-hour power reserve and sweep seconds.