BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
The Paris Summer Olympics are right around the corner, one of the most important events in the sporting calendar. However, it’s not just sports that draw attention to this event; it’s also a big calendar event for the timing sponsor Omega, which has released a new limited edition dress piece.
This new and classy dress watch is snappily named the Specialities Paris 2024 Bronze Gold Edition and carries the reference 522.92.39.21.99.001. At 39mm x 11.7mm, this special watch features quite a historic look, which is partly thanks to the Bronze Gold case, which is a special alloy Omega developed comprising gold, silver, bronze, and palladium and is hallmarked as 9K gold. The case is 30m water resistant.
Omega has been the timing partner of the Summer Olympics since 1932, making Paris the 31st time the brand has been tied to the event. The watch therefore features quite a historic look, the solid silver dial has been engraved with fine guilloché, Clous de Paris style of course. It’s built on the CK 859 model which is a historic revival-type dress watch released a few years ago, so it fits the era style they were going for, right down to the old Omega logo and text. This specific model was apparently modelled after a model Omega made in 1939 which had a manually-wound movement with small seconds.
This watch also features a manually-wound movement, the 8926, part of Omega’s current generation of in-house movements building on the work of the now legendary 8500 calibre. This one features hand-winding and small seconds, as just mentioned and as in the model from the 1930s, but it also comes with modern features such as silicone components, which make it resistant to high levels of magnetism. It’s also got the co-axial escapement, which Omega continues to use, and has been awarded Master Chronometer status by METAS. The watch’s power reserve is 72 hours, and there’s a healthy level of decoration, although that’s obscured by a closed caseback featuring a stamped and grained Paris Olympics logo. The caseback is also made of Bronze Gold and features, amongst others, the engraving BG 859 indicating this is a version of a historical model.
This watch isn’t a limited edition one, but I wouldn’t expect it to hang around long after the end of the year if even that. The price of this one is €13,200.
