Calibre 660 — ladies' calibre, 17 jewels

In brief

Ladies' cases at the start of the 1960s were small, and the 6xx family included calibres cut to fit them. The 660 is one of those — hand-wound, 17 jewels, made for the reduced dimensions of Omega's women's watches.

Short history

Anyone servicing one of these has more to work with than the calibre number suggests. The 6xx movements were built from the same bridges, wheels and jewelling as Omega's automatic 5xx range, so donor parts can come from either family. The reason was production rather than posterity: one set of components covered two ranges. The 660 makes no great claims for itself, which goes for the whole series behind the Genève and De Ville of those years, and it stayed in the catalogue until the manual calibres were dropped in 1974, when quartz was already the dominant force in Swiss watchmaking.

Watches that used it

• Omega ladies' watch (1960s)