Posted by Lee Sullivan on 02/11/2019
The OMEGA Seamaster is the longest running collection line still being produced by OMEGA. It was first produced in 1948, loosely based upon designs made for the British Royal Navy towards the end of World War II, and continues to be one of OMEGA’s most popular collections.|
The collection has included movements such as manual winding, automatic winding, chronometer, and quartz in its history.
The original Seamaster’s key feature was an ‘O’ ring gasket used to provide its waterproof seal. This design had been developed for use in submarines during the war, and turned out to also be useful for watches, where it made them much less vulnerable to temperature and pressure changes than earlier based gasket designs.
The Seamaster has also been worn by James Bond in the James Bond movie franchise since 1995. Commander Bond being a naval man, a diver and a discreet gentleman of the world was perfectly suited to an OMEGA Seamaster.
First worn by Pierce Brosnan in the Movie ‘Goldeneye’. He wore the OMEGA Seamaster Professional Diver 300m Quartz.
Over the years, Mr Bond has worn a Seamaster Diver 300m, a Seamaster Planet Ocean, a Seamaster Aqua Terra and a Seamaster 300.
In 1999, OMEGA introduced the world’s first industrially produced movement with a Co-Axial escapement, providing long-lasting accuracy and requiring greatly reduced lubrication and servicing. In 2013, OMEGA produced a Seamaster Aqua Terra > 15,000 Gauss powered by the Co-Axial Calibre 8508, the world’s first truly magnetic resistant mechanical watch movement, shortly followed by the introduction of the OMEGA Master Co-Axial calibre in 2014.
The OMEGA Seamaster first made a diving record in 1955, when diver Gordon McLean reached a depth of 62.5 meters in Australia.
In 2019, OMEGA produced three specially made experimental watches dubbed ‘OMEGA Seamaster Planet Ocean Ultra Deep Professionals’ which survived a 10,928 meter dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, setting a new world record as deepest dive watch by 12 meters.