Omega Official Announcement: Cal.321 Movement Resumed Production!
Early this morning, Omega officially announced that it will re-produce the famous Cal.321 movement in the brand’s history! This news caused a huge sensation in the bezel. When it comes to Cal.321 movement, some watch friends may be unfamiliar with this series of digital models, but if I introduce other resumes, I think many people know. In 1962, astronaut Ed White wore Cal.321 during the first US spacewalk. In 1969, the astronaut Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon, also wearing a Cal.321 movement. The timekeeping movements used by many high-end brands such as Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Breguet, Athens, Roger Dolby, etc. are actually upgraded based on this Cal.321 derivative. It is no exaggeration to say that Cal.321 is one of the most important chronograph movements in the history of watches and clocks. The birth of this movement dates back to the 1940s. In the 1940s, the Lemania movement factory and the watch brand Omega belonged to the SIHH Group. So the two collaborated on a project called ’27 CHRO C12′ and wanted to develop a chronograph movement for watches. Here, ’27’ stands for 27 mm in diameter. ‘CHRO’ is the abbreviation of ‘Chronograph’. ‘C12’ means that the time scale can reach 12 hours. The movement oscillates at 18,000 times per hour and adopts a column wheel + horizontal clutch design. Because it was developed by two people, when it was successfully launched, it had two different names, Omega Cal.321 and Lemania Cal.2310. With reasonable structural design, Cal.321 was applied to a large number of watches after its launch, and witnessed many important historical events. However, in 1968, Omega Cal.321 was discontinued. The reason is that the mechanism design of the movement is complicated and there are many processes, which is not conducive to large-scale production, so Omega introduced the Cal.861 movement. The most obvious part change is that the ‘column wheel’ used to switch functions has become a ‘cam’. This cam has relatively low processing requirements and can be produced by stamping. And it can be made into two parts, and then combined into one, effectively saving production costs. At the same time, the double-layer Breguet hairspring was downgraded into a flat hairspring. Of course, Cal.861 is also optimized on the basis of Cal.321, such as increasing the wobble frequency from 18,000 times to 21600 times per hour to improve the accuracy of travel time. As mentioned earlier, because of cooperative development, the movement of the ’27 CHRO C12′ project was Omega Cal.321 and also Lemania Cal.2310. Omega Cal.321 was discontinued in 1968, but Lemania Cal.2310 has been in production. In 1981, the quartz crisis caused the SSIH group to suffer a lot, and finally had to split the Lemania movement factory and sell it to Piaget. Ten years later, in 1991, Lemania was resold by Count to Middle Eastern oil group Investcorp. Investcorp just bought the famous watch brand Breguet before, so Breguet and Lemania were linked together. In 1999, Investcorp sold both Breguet and lemania to Swatch, and Lemania and Omega became a family. In 2004, Lemania was fully incorporated into Breguet as its division. Of course, lemania is still providing movements for non-Breguet brands. Although Lemania Cal.2310 has been in production and Omega now belongs to the same group as Breguet, this Lemania Cal.2310 is not given to Omega, but is oriented to the high-end market. In order to resume production, Omega formed a team of researchers, developers and historians, as well as the best craftsmen and experienced watchmakers. They worked secretly for two years. Using digital scanning timing will The original Cal.321 movement was re-mapped and produced with modern equipment instead of using the old molds in stock. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the successful landing of the astronaut Armstrong on the moon, and Omega announced the restoration of the Cal.321 movement at this moment. The news can be said to be ‘explicitly’ that it will be used to commemorate the production of watches. Although everyone knows that the Cal.321 movement is very good, watch friends are still very concerned about the quantity and market price. At present, Omega officials have not given more Many news, but according to Omega did not use the stock antique movement, did not find the same group Breguet asked for Lemania Cal. 2310 movement, but spent a lot of money to re-map industrial production behavior, this Cal.321 movement It will definitely resume a lot, otherwise it will lose money. Of course, table friends should not be too happy. Because according to the president of Omega, the new version of Cal.321 will be in the special Ca Libre 321 working room. For each movement, component, and case and strap components will be performed by the same watchmaker, such a complicated process also means that its price is not cheap. —END —