Vintage Omega Constellation Full Review

Hey everyone, it is late at night and I am Norman. I just got back from San Diego, so I'm sunburned and I'm ready to do a watch review. I have one more watch that a close friend of mine sent me for review. Tonight we're going to look at that. This is the same friend who lent me the Rolex Explorer and the vintage Omega Seamaster DeVille, the Dawn Draper. This watch is absolutely amazing. So, let's flip the camera around and take a look at it. Here is the Omega Constellation in all of its gold-toned glory. That thing is absolutely brilliant looking. Normally I'm not a huge gold-toned fan, but this thing just looks phenomenal. I'll show you what this looks like on the wrist, so be sure to stick around until the end of the video for that. Now the information that I'm sharing with you tonight came from my close friend and is the result of his research and blood, sweat, and tears. So, huge shout out to him for passing that information along. This watch here, unlike the Dawn Draper, is 100% original. So let's begin by looking at the strap and work our way up to the watch head itself. So here we see the original Omega strap here. That has some great, subtle texturing on there. There's some branding there. And look at this buckle. And that tang. That has a really cool shape to it. And we have some more branding here. And the buckle perfectly matches the watch. We come up to the lugs. And these are actually Gerald Genta designs called Dogleg Lugs. You can see how they get wide right there and they're kind of angled. Very interesting design. I like how they're kind of separate from the case here. So we see they're gold and then the sides of the case there are silver. They are not drilled. Very cool design. And then looking at the sides of the case, that is just so cool looking. All these different details to look at here. How it's nice and rounded and then the lugs are kind of a separate piece. Same with the front and the back of the case. In this case where you see the gold is gold capped versus plated. Go around to the case back. Here we see that it is screwed down. There's the observatory. And you'll notice that there are eight stars there. There's six over here and then two larger ones there. Those eight stars represent eight chronometer records that were set by Omega. Including setting precision records for all six trials at the Geneva Observatory in 1931. Some people believe that this observatory is the Geneva Observatory but that is not conclusive. Very cool case back. Moving on to the crown. We see the Omega logo right there. And look at how smooth that crown is. This has to be one of the most difficult crowns I've ever encountered as far as winding goes. You have to kind of grip it and sort of turn the watch. Ah, that is so crazy. It just feels like it's not moving at all. However, fortunately this watch is actually an automatic. You may have noticed at the beginning of this video it was already ticking away. And that was simply by picking up the watch and preparing it for this video. So all you really need to do here is give it a couple turns. Kind of force those out. Then maybe give it a few shakes to get that that movement going. And I mean look at how thin this is even though it's an automatic. That is so cool. When I first saw this watch I assumed it was manual wind given its size and everything. And so when my friend was showing me how difficult it is to wind this, I was a little bit disheartened. I was trying to wind it and I'm like, man I don't know how long this thing's gonna last. And that was when he informed me that it's actually an automatic watch. Pop this crown out. It does not hack. And there's only one position. So it doesn't have a quick date set just like the Dawn Draper. So you have to run this around to midnight. Let that date flip over. And then you have to go backward. And then do it again until you have it set to the date that you want. Put this back in. And there we go. Look at that dial and those hands. I love Delphine hands. These look brilliant. And look at that pie pan dial. And those gold indices are just amazing looking. The frame on the date is really nice. And look at how great the branding is there for the Constellation. Automatic chronometer officially certified. So if I had read I would have known that it was an automatic. Now one sad thing is you'll notice that the crystal is actually cracked over here. But it's actually kind of difficult to see unless you're looking for it. So that's not too bad. And look at that crystal. Those distortions are great. Look at that. This watch is just gorgeous. The movement inside this watch is the Caliber 561. Some of these watches also feature the Caliber 562. However, I believe that movement is calibrated at two positions. And the measurements are actually taken by junior technicians. Whereas this movement here is calibrated at five positions. And it is done by senior technicians. And the watch would have been sent off to be chronometer certified. Which in 1966, I believe, would have been the Bureau Officiel des Contrôles de la Marche des Montreux. Ooh, I botched that. But that later became COSC, COSC. As for the specifications on this watch, it has a 34 millimeter case size. 18 millimeter lugs. It is about 12 millimeters in height. Again, it features the Caliber 561. And as I mentioned, this particular piece is 100% original. So let me take my $20 Seiko quartz watch off. And I'll show you what this looks like on the wrist. Here is the Constellation on my 7-inch wrist. And unlike the Don Draper, this one actually fits nice and snug. The Don Draper was pretty loose on my wrist, so I haven't really worn it a whole lot. This one I've worn a couple times, but it fits so much better. That strap looks absolutely brilliant on this watch. And that gold tone is just awesome. And I'm not even a gold-toned fan, but that just looks amazing. It's nice and slim. Super sleek looking. Just brilliant. So there you have it. The brilliant vintage Omega Constellation. Thanks for watching. you