In an ad published on 22 June 1939 in the British Daily Telegraph, the following words were used to advertise the OMEGA Marine: “30 fathoms deep an OMEGA ‚Marine’ still ticks away untroubled“. Since the Daily Telegraph is probably not read by many professional divers and adventurers that dare to go to the depths of the ocean (30 fathoms equals 50 meters), one might ask themselves who was to be animated to buy this waterproof watch. Taking this into account, the advertisers had the daring idea to pitch this watch to basically anybody by adding: „So if you are an absent-minded bather (or even a careless washer) this is the watch for you!“  Because, who never forgets to take their watch off while washing their hands or never accidentally jumps into the pool with their jewellery on. So, ultimately, the idea is not even that daring. There are everyday risks for all watch wearers. These can be countered by wearing a powerful diving watch that is guaranteed waterproof to 1000 meters. Worn on the wrists of harmless contemporaries, these “conversation pieces” do not really reach their full potential in meeting rooms and at parties. It seems that diving watches are a thing for landlubbers. Somehow, times haven’t changed so much. But one problem does become apparent when making a comparison to almost one hundred years ago: the price tag. While in the 21st century quite a few people are willing to invest CHF 10,000 in a watch, in the 1930s, it was a lot more difficult to convince people that they needed an expensive watch merely because they were forgetful or scattered. And the Omega Marine was indeed expensive! In Switzerland, the watch cost CHF 150. At the time, a worker earned CHF 1.13 an hour on average (women workers only CHF 0.70). So, he would have had to work 113 hours to buy a watch – not exactly a bargain. 

Nevertheless, the price of the OMEGA was more than fair. For that time, the Marine was a technical wonder. The watch was fitted with a sapphire glass on the outside. A material that was then expensive and difficult to work with – the sapphire belongs to the group of corundum and has a hardness of 9 on the respective hardness scale (with the diamond at 10). Hardened steel has a value of 8. The outer case is placed over an inner case that has its own glass (regular watch glass) so that the winding crown – the weakest part of a waterproof watch – is protected. The whole thing is equipped with an inner seal made of leather (originally, it was meant to be made of rubber, but its possible this was not available in good enough quality). The outer case can be attached to the inner case with a clamp so that the whole thing is hermetically sealed. 

So why didn’t they just use a screw-in crown, especially since rectangular cases are generally more difficult to seal than round ones? This had to do with the patent of the big competitor in Geneva. Rolex had already protected the Oyster crown in the mid-twenties. Nobody could get around this. There was only the elaborate detour that OMEGA took. The movement of the Marine is a hand-wound mechanical one (Calibre 19.4 SOB T2). One might wonder whether a self-winding movement might have been more adequate, as every time the watch needed to be wound, the double case had to be opened and then closed again, which led to wearing off the seal. At the time, the company had no self-winding movement of its own. OMEGA had missed out on the trend of developing a self-winding movement because their patron strongly believed that people should not be too lazy to wind their watch by hand. But even if a self-winding movement would have been available, the watch, with its double case, would have become too thick. So, a hand-wound calibre it was. It should be mentioned here that for the re-edition of the Marine 2007, OMEGA also chose a hand-wound movement (albeit it with a co-axial escapement). Probably for the same reasons as back then.

Because it was impractical and high-priced, the OMEGA Marine was ultimately no big commercial success. But in one respect this watch beats every Submariner or Sea Dweller of our time. While these can be put on the wrist, even if you’ve forgotten to screw in the crown, the Marine cannot be worn unless the case of the watch has been pushed together and fastened! A completely fool-proof system for “absent-minded people”. Accordingly, the Marine is much cheaper than the Rolex, although, admittedly, it’s not as contemporary.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that in the 30s of the last century, apart from “absent-minded people”, there were also “hardcore people” who actually needed the 1937 watch that was made in laboratory conditions and could withstand a depth of 135 meters. Such as Dr. William Beebe; a fearless nature researcher and adventurer who had already descended nearly 1000 meters below the ocean surface in his "Bathysphere" in 1934. With rather improvised diving equipment and an OMEGA Marine on his wrist, he went down into the Pacific Ocean and later wrote the following words to the company in Biel: „I wore my OMEGA Marine in the Pacific Ocean at a depth of 14 metres, where the pressure is twice the normal one. My watch sustained this test with success. Its tightness to water and dust and its robustness to corrosion represent a true progress for watchmaking science.“ But still, Beebe and his associates were not exactly a selling point for the readers of the Daily Telegraph. 

German original by Bruno Pfaff