DEPLOYANT – Luxury watch reviews & horological lifestyles – Luxury watch reviews & horological lifestyles
Omega PLOngeur PROFessionnel (Professional Diver) began life in 1970, the ugly ducking of diver watches. The watch was, and it is still considered by some, one of the most non-appealing watches released by Omega. But since the utility and not the beauty was the key factor of this tool watch, the Ploprof raised fast a profound respect between professional divers. Today we review the modern diver Seamaster Ploprof 1200, Reference 227.90.55.21.04.001, a titanium beast with a sweet blue bezel.
Review: Omega Seamaster Ploprof 1200
The increasing number of the military and commercial diving professionals in the sixties, as well as the increased requirements for the diving watches, lead to a collaboration between Omega and Jacques Cousteau to create an extreme water-resistant watch. After four years of development and intensive testing, the Omega Ploprof was released in 1970. The PLOngeur PROFessionnel nomenclature comes from the French-speaking team that designed the watch.
The first company that used the new diver was Compagnie Maritime d’Expertise – Comex, an oil research company that participated also in the development phase. Fearing that the crystal might pop out at decompression stage of diving, due to helium expansion, Comex researched the solution provided by a helium release valve. In 1971, Rolex made the helium escape valve commercially available on the Ref. 1665. We covered this historical landmark in our hands-on of the newest Sea-Dweller, Ref. 126600 is available here. But in fact, even without a gas escape valve, Omega had none of the helium issues of the counterparts diving watches. The brand’s solution was to make the watch air-tight, and thanks to the monoblock construction, it achieves a tightness better than that of the Apollo spacecraft.
The 1970 Omega Ploprof was an extreme diving watch created by divers for divers. The atypical look gain fast the sympathy of the divers due to the extraordinary technical specification and easy use. Image courtesy of Omega
The first watches were tested and proofed in Omega laboratories for 600m and even in lower depths in the live experiments, going up to more than double of the advertised 600m. The costly development boosts the watch on the top of the most expensive Omega professional watches. The Ploprof price was so high, approximately double that of the Rolex Submariner, that many of the amateur divers could not afford it. And it was mainly bought by companies for their professional divers.
The watch featured a series of patents like the CH503310 / 1968 for the locking bezel system or the CH480680 / 1967 for the monobloc case. The easy use of the crown locking system and the unusual bezel lock gain sympathy due to robustness and easy handling. The watch was not the most attractive diving pieces available on the market and Omega advertised it in an original way:
“It may not look pretty on the surface, but deep down it’s beautiful.”
– Omega
The professional divers knew that they can rely on Omega Ploprof for their own life, and this contributed to the success of the watch. The […]
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Article from: DEPLOYANT – Luxury watch reviews & horological lifestyles, by Dan-Andrei Kluska
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