| In 1848, at the age of 23, Louis Brands opened a comptoir d'etabilissage, a sub-contracting sales office for watch manufacture. In 1880, the two brothers César and Louis-Paul Brandt rented a floor in a Bienne building to set up a modern watch production unit. Among the names they chose for their watches were "Helvetia", "Jura", "Celtic", "Gurzelen", and "Patria". With the introduction of the "Labrador" lever movement in 1885, the watches achieved a precision of within 30 seconds a day.
In 1889, four years, later, Louis Brandt and Fils became the largest producers of watches in Switzerland, with a production rate of of over 100,000 watches. But this fact did not stop the exclusivity of the watches they produced, e.g. the minute-repeating wristwatch, developed in 1892 in partnership with Audemars Piguet, and probably the first wristwatch of its kind.
The Omega name made it's sports debut at the international ballooning contest for the Gordon Bennet cup in 1909. Britain's Royal Flying Corps decided to choose Omega watches in 1917 as their official timekeepers for it's combat units, as did the American army in 1918. Omega had their first victory at the observatory timing competitions in Neuchâtel in 1919 with their chronometers winning the competition. This was continued with a score of first places right up until 1971. The 1933, 1936 and 1946 competitions were some of Omega's most noteworthy.
On 21st July 1969, astronaught Neil Armstrong became the first man to step on the moon. As he made the famous steps quoting "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind", he was wearing his Omega Speedmaster Professional chronograph. In 1972, Omega recieved their two-millionth chronometer certificate.
On the 18th of May, 1983, Omega recieved it's 100,000th official rating certificate for quartz chronometers. A museum for the company was opened on 16th December 1983. In 1995, presentations were made of the first automatic wristwatch with a centrally mounted tourbillion. Omega is continuing to demonstrate it's innovation, with it's newest addition to the company's collection in 1999, with the new 2500 caliber movement looking to replace the traditional Swiss-lever escapement. Omega's watchmakers have developed the "coaxial escapement", a creation of the English master-watchmaker, George Dianels, for series production in wristwatches. The combination of the new escapement and a newly developed free sprung balance aims to eliminate the basic impediments to accurate regular timekeeping. The effect of the thickness and viscosity of lubricant on the balance's amplitude has been virtually eliminated. The new coaxial escapement consists of three components: a coaxial wheel, an escape wheel, and a lever with three pallet stones, unlike the conventional pallet-lever and escape wheel of the lever escapement. This has extended service intervals to around 10 years.
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