
Pocket Watches · Pocket watch
18ct yellow gold Omega diamond set 'Harvest' pendant watch designed by Andrew Grima, 1972
- Maker / attribution
- OMEGA (maker)
- Date
- 1972
- Historical period
- Quartz Revolution (1969 – 1990)
- Country of origin
- Unrecorded in source
- Object type
- Pocket watch
- Materials / technique
- yellow gold
- Dimensions
- Case 47 mm
- Stock no.
- O.3448
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, Somlo Antiques (O.3448)
- Catalogue title (original)
- 18ct yellow gold OMEGA diamond set 'Harvest' pendant watch designed by Andrew Grima. Made 1972 (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by Somlo Antiques (dealer), London (stock number O.3448), this is a pocket watch by OMEGA, dated 1972. The Atlas places it in the Quartz Revolution period (1969 – 1990) of its Pocket Watches collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: yellow gold. Recorded dimensions: Case 47 mm. The record is illustrated with 3 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Dealer description — Somlo Antiques
Andrew Grima was an Anglo-Italian designer who became known as the most respected modern jewellery designer in Britain during the 1960's and 1970's. Grima was arguably the most innovative designer of his generation with a fashionable shop at No. 80 Jermyn Street with a Royal Warrant as a jeweller to HM The Queen and HRH Princess Margaret. Andrew Grima had never designed a watch and he was commissioned by OMEGA to design a collection of watches, About Time, that even today remain unsurpassed for their ingenuity, audacity and powerful, sculptural design. Brand: OMEGA Year: 1972 Model: Grima 'Harvest' Reference: 8260 Calibre: 620 Movement: Manual Material: 18ct yellow gold Features/complications: Diamond set Wheatsheaf inspired case and emerald cut quartz Dial: Brushed gold dial featuring applied 18ct yellow gold quarter baguette hour indices with black baton hands Case dimensions: 47mm x 145mm Bracelet/strap: 18ct yellow gold textured wire pendant chain Accessories: - SKU: 03448
Historical context
Quartz Revolution (1969 – 1990)
Seiko's Astron begins mass quartz timekeeping; traditional industries contract sharply.
Quartz pocket watches and inexpensive novelty watches appeared, while traditional mechanical pocket watches survived mainly as collectibles and gifts.
Read the period in the timelineMore pocket watches from this periodEarlier: Modern Mechanical Horology
Atlas type guide
Early spring-driven watches
Portable spring-driven timepieces appeared in southern Germany, France and Italy in the early sixteenth century; Peter Henlein of Nuremberg is traditionally credited, although the historical record is complex. These early watches were worn as pendants or carried, had iron or brass movements with a verge escapement and a foliot or small balance, and used a stackfreed or fusee to equalise spring force. They indicated hours only and were notoriously inaccurate.
From the later sixteenth century watches were made in Blois, Paris, Geneva, London and Augsburg in oval, octagonal, cruciform, skull and other 'form' cases of rock crystal, gilt brass, silver and enamel. They were jewellery and status objects as much as timekeepers.
What to look for
- A single hour hand and often a touch-pin hour ring for feeling the time.
- Stackfreed (a cam and spring) instead of a fusee on German watches.
- Pierced and engraved cocks over the balance, fine gut fusee lines.
- Rock-crystal, enamelled or engraved form cases.
Dating clues
- Drum-shaped German watches: c. 1530–1580.
- Oval and form watches: c. 1580–1650.
- Before c. 1675 there is no balance spring; watches can vary by many minutes a day.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
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