Are Omega getting too expensive

Omega watches have always been 'Expensive.'

I was lucky in the early to mid 1990s when they were not valued in the 'Silicon Valley.' Those in the know went for the 'brands for royalty.' Quartz watches were flooding the market literally by the boat load. For most repairers Rolex was the bread and butter. For one simple reason. Rolex owners would pay more.

The local NAWCC mart undervalued the omegas. The common vintage stuff was selling for around 60 bucks for base metal. Gold was scrap value. There were also quite a few fakes from the 1970s and 1980s what did not help.

The local NAWCC could also be a bit elitist and a bit Xenophobic outside English speaking countries.. Most of the focus was on the American made pocket watches and clocks. There was also a bit of an antiquarian bend. I think to the older members wrist watches were common everyday items. As I have noted, and probably will again, Wrist watches were sold by the estate dealers and dumped in bulk on the mart tables. The good stuff cherry picked. Omega was on the lower end though of the cherry picking. So from my point of view the were more expensive than the bulk watches.

Many of the other quality brands ceased to exist or were over sold by clearing houses. An expensive watch back in the 1960 or 1970s was to me the 60 to 100 range. For a lot of people that was becoming the cost of a repair. This was also the era of mall battery changers and disposable watches. The repair dealers would complain customers only wanted to pay like 5 or 10 bucks for a full service.

I was told a lot of the stuff I got came from the DWC (Dead Watchmaker corporation.)

The new stuff in the latter 1990s was selling in the 500 to 1500 range at Macy's. Then prices really took off after the Apollo 13 movie came out. James bond at the time was still wearing Seiko. I remember when the Bond franchise switched to omega.

I was not active in the pre 1970s era. (LED and LCD watches did fascinate me though.) I got one of the sinclar kit watches. Which was like a small alarm clock. I also learned about cold solder joins. I wound up swapping it for the ergonomic chair I am currently sitting in. I never wore the watch. Sure it would have been a nice novelty, but I have had a lot more use out of this chair.

Before that Timex was really the only brand I could name. What I know about the 1940s through 1980s came from reading trade magazines. Omega never really target much advertising in these. Probably because they did not need to. Especially when they had retailers like Macy's doing the heavy lifting.

And they will continue to get more expensive. Buy now and get off the treadmill. Besides, what isn’t too expensive nowadays?