Don't miss the next drop
Engraved around the back of this Omega Seamaster 166.032, in two rings of block capitals, is a name and a job: FRANK E. GORDON – EXALTED RULER 71-72, and inside that ring, HOLLYWOOD LODGE B.P.O.E. 2325. Exalted Ruler is the title the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks gives to the member its lodge elects to preside over it. The term is one year, and by the Order’s statutes that year runs from the first of April to the last day of March. Gordon’s started in April 1971 and finished in March 1972.
He took the chair when the Order’s membership was near its peak. An Exalted Ruler’s report from the 1970-71 lodge year counted 1,508,050 Elks across 2,146 lodges, and the national rolls would top out around 1.6 million later in the decade. The formal recognition for completing the office is a jewel, a medallion on a ribbon. A watch is not among the codified honors, but Elks casebacks turn up engraved like this one, the earliest we found dating to 1934. Whether the lodge presented this one or Gordon had it done himself, we cannot say. Past that we run out of record. Lodge 2325 no longer appears on the Elks’ rolls, and of Frank E. Gordon we found nothing at all.
A day-date is a sensible watch for a man who spent a year running a calendar, and this is the honest version of it. Inside the caseback sit two reference numbers, 166 032 and 168 023, stamped one above the other. That is correct and original, and it is precisely what gets watches like this one mis-sold. Omega cut one case for two models and let the movement separate them: 168.023 was the chronometer, carrying the 24-jewel calibre 751, while 166.032 was the standard watch. The movement settles which one this is. It reads 750 beneath the Omega symbol, SEVENTEEN JEWELS spelled out across the plate, and none of the adjustment text Omega’s chronometer movements carry. So we do not call it one.
The case is stainless steel, 36mm across and 42mm lug to lug, the lugs broad and flat, the wide sloped bezel brushed to a soft grey and carrying the fine scratches and dings of a watch that was worn rather than shelved. The crown is signed, and the Seamaster hippocampus stands raised on the back inside the ring of Gordon’s engraving. The dial is silver, finely brushed in circles that swing the light around as the watch turns, with applied faceted batons and tritium in the hands long since gone to old ivory. Day and date share a single black-framed window at three. The calibre 750 beneath runs at 19,800 beats an hour with a fifty-hour reserve, its serial putting assembly around 1969. The 750’s date quick-sets from the crown; the day only comes round by running the hands.
Serviced in-house at OTTUHR and backed by our 2-year mechanical warranty, on a black ostrich strap with our own buckle. Gordon’s year ended in March 1972, and everything around it has since gone quiet: the lodge is off the rolls, the rosters with it. What is left is his name on the back of a watch that is still running.
