THE ESSENTIALS

MAKE: OMEGA
MODEL: 166.077
YEAR: 1973
BOX/PAPERS: NO/NO
CASE DIAMETER: 45mm
CASE MATERIAL: STAINLESS STEEL
BRACELET MATERIAL: RUBBER
MOVEMENT: AUTOMATIC 

 In the late 1960s underwater exploration, off-shore oil construction and maintenance, as well as applications such as scuba diving, water sports, and sub-aqua military and naval special forces, saw an increase in demand for underwater watches. 

The issue at the time was, when sub surface workers would return to “decompress” or return to saturation, helium would sometimes build up inside the watch, it’s had nowhere to escape often causing the glass to crack or explode.

Omega decided to tackle this problem buy building a sealed mono block case which wouldn’t allow any air to get in or out. They arrived at the Omega Seamaster 600, “ProPlof” which is actually a portmanteau word for Plongeur Professionel, meaning Professional Diver in French.

Omega beat Rolex and Comex to the ultra dive watch race, nowadays their helium escape valves are commonplace but this was cutting edge 50 years ago. They released the watch in early 71 and made several alterations to the dial and bezel over the next 6 years. This particular example is from 1973, its has a service acrylic bezel insert, type D2 tritium hands and a mk3 tritium dial. The watch comes on a black Omega Isofrane rubber strap with Omega buckle. 

The watch came to us in great health running at +3 s/d, 270 amps with a beat error of 0.3. These vintage PloProf are becoming ever so hard to find, nothing wears like the original.