I started work on an Omega wristwatch this week with a caliber 283 inside. Here is the funny thing. The first thing I noticed when I opened the watch was a loose cap jewel stuck (by oil) to the inside of the case. I assumed that it had come loose from one of the balance shock systems but when I finished disassembly it turned out to be an extra loose jewel just floating around inside the watch case.

I have to wonder how does that happen? I don’t know the answer of course because, as I have mentioned before, these things don’t have little black boxes or cockpit voice recorders inside of them. Let’s have some fun and guess. Vote for your favorite option:

1. The last watchmaker finished assembly and had an extra jewel on his bench so he just tossed it in for good measure. “Maybe the next guy will figure out where it goes.”
2. The last watchmaker was working on another watch and lost the jewel, when it shot out of his tweezers, and never found it because it landed inside of this Omega. Yes, Aimeri, cap jewels can be more of a pain than springs.
3. There is a wormhole for lost watch parts with one end inside this watch.
4. The jewel dislodged at some point and the watch stopped running so the customer took it to a watchmaker who replaced the jewel without taking the time to find the jewel that came out. “What harm can a little jewel do, bouncing around inside the watch?”
5. In an effort to increase the jewel count somebody added one more, it is now an 18 jewel manual wind Omega.
6. Everybody knows good jewels are like rabbits, if you have a male and a female they multiply, like, well . . . rabbits!

Vote for your favorite!

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