Weekly Watch Photo – Omega Seamaster Ploprof

I recently stumbled across this photo of an Omega Seamaster Ploprof and I love it. It’s a great wrist shot of a watch that’s not so easy to capture. 

Last Friday I visited the Timzone UK forum and it was a long time since I went there. If you’re a frequent forum visitor, you already know the Friday rollcall posts… everyone replies with a wrist shot of what’s on his wrist that day. There where several that really appealed so over the next few weeks I’ll be using some of the forum member’s wrist shots.

I actually never was a fan of the vintage Omega Seamaster Ploprof and although some friends went nuts over it, I never understood its charm. Show me a vintage Heuer Monaco or Autavia and I’ll become very enthusiastic. But a strange thing has happened since Omega released this re-issue of the old Seamaster Ploprof at Baselwolrd 2009… I’m starting to like the Ploprof more and more.

Omega originally developed this big chunk of steel in 1971 and it got its name from the French words PLOngeur (diver) and PROFessional. The Plongeur re-issue is a BIG watch and measures 55 mm by 48 mm and is 17.5 mm thick.

The big orange button on the right top side of the case, has to be pushed in in order to rotate the diving bezel.  It is the diving bezel’s release pusher. The reason for this is that a normal rotating bezel can sometime be turned accidentally when diving. If this happens and the diver relies on the bezel to indicate the correct dive time,  it could result in a too long diving time which can be very dangerous for the diver. The original Ploprof was developed by a team of French professional divers (hence te name) and they developed this diving bezel release button.

The diving bezel is quite big and it’s easy to get grip on it in order to turn it, even with dive gloves. Personally I just love the orange ‘plonguer’ minute hand that can also be seen on the Girard-Perregaux  Sea Hawk Pro 1,000m that we reviewed recently.

In order to adjust the time or date or to wind the watch after it has been in the drawer (or vault) for some time, the crown has to be unscrewed. This moves the crown protector backwards and allows the crown to be pulled. It is one of the most serious crown protectors I’ve ever seen on a watch and I’m sure this one does it’s job very well…

Inside ticks the Omega caliber 8500 that was first used in the Omega DeVille Hour Vision. It’s a co-axial movement and has a pwer reserve of around 60 hours. One of the reasons for Omega to develop and use the co-axial movements in many of their watches, is that this escapement doesn’t need to be serviced every 3-5 years. Something that is even better with a dive watch because not every watchmaker has the tools to test the water resistance up to this depth, after it’s been serviced.

Thanx a lot to Timezone UK member Wing Tsun for allowing me to use his beautiful photos! Here’s a link to his original post with photos.

The Omega Ploprof is priced at exactly € 7,000 euro (including VAT).