# Omega Cal 1511 Marine Chronometer



## dickstar1977 (Feb 4, 2008)

Hi all

Well, as most of you know my real collecting passion lies with 1970's Omegas and particularly Megaquartz and early quartz. Over the years I have amassed a fair collection of Omegas including a few examples of MQ2,4Mhz! As you know these are very special watches, accurate to 1 second per month and with technology that has never been surpassed!

The model that had always eluded me was the Marine Chronometer, the ultimate Omega, worn by Jacques Cousteau etc etc, a real grail of a piece. Produced in two models cal 1511 (1000 made) and cal 1516 (7000 made). The 1511 was the one for me but I never managed to get one! Then finally at Christmas last year it happend! Long story short I found it on ebay and after much too'ing an fro'ing I finally got it.

As it turned out the owner lived in my home town of Grimsby, I bought the watch and it was in great but used shape! Some research revealed some great facts;

The watch was first sold on 19th July 1977, the day I was born and it as sold from Nidds and Sons in Grimsby, the same AD I bought my first watch, Bond Omega from 10 years ago when I was 21! It was fate

Anyway, after a short time I decided it needed to be as good as possible! The only place still servicing these (including Omega) is STS in Essex, which happens to be just round the corner from my house! It went in 8 weeks back and I got it back just before the Easter break! I think you will agree the results are superb! The watch has come up like new, once again STS have worked their magic:

Enjoy:

P.S. all the boxes and docs are correct and original with a replacement MC certificate from Beasacon


----------



## Who. Me? (Jan 12, 2007)

Very nice, especially with that chain of co-incidences!

They have one of these on display the British Museum. Yours looks in much better nick than theirs (and theirs wasn't running :blink: )

That's a real grail. Good choice.


----------



## Anthony A (Nov 7, 2008)

Thats a nice bit of gear! Lovely job by STS!


----------



## jasonm (Nov 22, 2003)

Superb !

Ive always loved the MQ ....That is a stunning example...

Whats the difference between the 2 cals?


----------



## dickstar1977 (Feb 4, 2008)

jasonm said:


> Superb !
> 
> Ive always loved the MQ ....That is a stunning example...
> 
> Whats the difference between the 2 cals?


The 1511 and 1516 have exactly the same accuracy but the 1516 is a refined version! This extract is from a topic written by Gino on WUS (I hope he wont mind me using it) :

"1500 - The prototype movement of which a few (Marine Chronometer watches) were quietly exhibited at Basle in 1970. Designed in conjunction with the Battelle Institute of Geneva, it is probable that this early version was fitted with a 1Mhz quartz crystal. The unique crystal and its package used in this watch was designed by STC in Harlow, England. I was told by Doug Dyer, who was an engineer working there at the time, that C.E.H. in Switzerland who were working on the CMOS IC were having trouble getting it to work with a frequency above 1mHz while providing an acceptable battery life. CMOS while having low power consumption didnâ€™t then have the speed of the more power hungry TTL or ECL logic. They eventually got the electronics to work at 2.4Mhz and this might go some way to explaining the 3-4 year gap between showing the prototypes and the start of production in 1974. (Interestingly, given more development it seems that an even higher frequency movement could have been built.) The mechanical design of the 13 jewel movement, flat coil jumping motor, the pillar plate, motion work and the bridges etc are all very similar to the production movements.

1510 - c1974 The first production movement with the 2,359,296 Hz crystal as fitted to the non-Marine Chronometer watches. This version seems to have been fitted with an analogue divide by 2 stage â€˜in frontâ€™ of the integrated circuit (chip still not up to full speed). This consisted of a miniature torroidal transformer and a chip capacitor. The sweep seconds hand pivot was also fitted with an end bearing leaf spring similar (I think) to the types fitted to indirect seconds hand watches. This was perhaps to give some control to the movement of the hand. There also seemed to be a chip capacitor wired in parallel across the power cell.

1511 - c1974 The movement as fitted only to the Marine Chronometer watches. Identical in looks to the 1510, my limited research has been unable to find any physical differences between the 1510 and 1511 movements. Presumably the different caliber numbers were just to separate the certified and non-certified movements. It would be nice if perhaps the 1511s were more carefully assembled and used the best tolerance components (rather like COSEC versions of the 2892-A2 these days). But the cynic in me agrees with previous comments and doubts this. It was just two samples of these watches that were actually submitted to the Neuchatel Observatory for full testing as Marine Chronometers which they passed of course, but all the other MC movements were certified by Bescancon.

1515 - c1976 This seems to be an evolved version of the 1510 which was fitted to the non-MC Constellation watches. Gone is the front end analogue division network, so the chip speed must have been improved. Also absent is the seconds hand leaf spring (though I have seen pictures of movements where the pre-drilled holes for this remain) and the capacitor across the battery is now absent. The movement mounting arrangements have also been changed from a pair of screws that hold the movement to the case to a pair of thin â€™tonguesâ€™ that rotate into slots milled in the internal side walls. This perhaps was to coincide with the minor external case revisions.

1516 - c1976: The Marine Chronometer Bescancon certified version of the 1515.

So all these movements seem to be pretty similar, and the significant change is when they deleted the divider stage in front of the chip between the transition from 1511 to 1515. Is any one version â€™betterâ€™ than the others? Well I suppose it has to be the Marine Chronometer 1511/16 movements simply because of what they are. But in reality it very much looks as though they were just the expensive flagship versions of the range. Pretty effective though, as some of us are still fascinated with them over 30 years later."


----------



## bridgeman (Dec 9, 2008)

donot often comment on others watches but absolutely stunning-welldone


----------



## jasonm (Nov 22, 2003)

Interesting...Thanks


----------



## mjolnir (Jan 3, 2006)

Gorgeous. It looks brand new.

Sounds like it was made just for you as well. Those dates make for an amazing coincidence.


----------



## PhilM (Nov 5, 2004)

Perfect in every way :yes:


----------



## Stuart Davies (Jan 13, 2008)

Fantastic...fate indeed!

Your collection of Omegas continues to 'wow' Tom! :yes:


----------



## Agent orange (Feb 11, 2006)

:thumbup: Excellent catch mate, I really must try and get a MC for my little collection one day.

I see you're taking the concept of a birth year watch a few steps forward. I wonder what the odds of getting a watch sold on your actual birthday, in your home town are? Not forgetting a watch from your preferred maker, incredible really :blink:.

Wear it well, I wonder what'll be on your wrist on the 19th of July .

Cheers,

Gary


----------



## dickstar1977 (Feb 4, 2008)

Thanks all

I have really tried to refine my collection over the last year, keeping it to pieces I really wanted! Although I have owned dozens of vintage Omegas I now find myself with 10 or so I really love and I have tried to get them as original as possible!

I fear it is the bain of Esthers life as she can't fathom why a chap would need more than one watch, especially when it is 'the most acurate watch Omega made', let alone why I would need 10 with 'all the bloody boxes and crap clogging up the place'.

She did suggest I might want to thin the collection down further by getting rid of all 'those boxes' I don't use, I refered her to the wardrobe of shoes for an answer! LOL


----------



## dombox40 (Oct 20, 2008)

Thats a lovely looking watch, hope you will give it some wrist time it,s a shame to lock it away.


----------



## Charlie_Croker (Sep 30, 2007)

That is 100% gorgeous, talk about jealous! Would you accept a right arm in payment?


----------

