Not to be confused with an 'Extract of the Archives' ... The 'Certificate of Authenticity' appears to be something new. All those auction shenanigans can now be put to rest. Perhaps. And for 800CHF. In the following statement I wonder what the bold bit means (I have an idea, but its not clear)? "Please be aware that your watch will be subjected to an expertise and the outcome of this process will determine whether your timepiece will be granted a Certificate of Authenticity or not." Personally, I am of firm belief that the handful of vintage Omega's I own are very authentic. And I will definitely at no point in the future subject any of my watches to the 'expertise' of a stranger I do not know (and thus can not trust to be careful). Discuss.
I guess Rolex tried to do something similar. I heard, they lost every lawsuit the owners filed against them for mistakes in their assessment/certification. The service isn't available anymore.
CoA will require visual appraisal, including the movement, in Switzerland. Probably not worthwhile unless you have a particularly tasty vintage watch. And it has to be at least 30 years old. Should cut down on the frankenwatches being fobbed off as some ultra-rare Omega piece. It's a step in the right direction and shows how vintage Omegas are becoming more collectible and valuable.
I wonder if the "expert assessors" will be able to recognize an incorrect mid-case on an Ultraman, or a service sub dial hand, or a repro DON with the dot closer to the 1 on the 140 mark...
hmm that raises a lot of questions .... what means "correct" ? e.g you have a ed white with service hands and relumed dial .... (so still all parts correct) will the altered parts be stated ? will one get an cert ? furthermore will there be a classification system like on other vintahe things ? eg. 1-10 condition statements for all the parts ? like case original condition 6 (worn but intact with no corrosion) this rating and the meaning of the numbers should be public available
I can certainly see these being used to justify a premium in some desirable watches but for most people this would be an expensive addition. I also wonder what this will do to the EOA that are often used to help support a watches "provenance". I can't see me using this any time soon
I certainly have a handful of watches that would qualify for a CoA but hey, until they explain more in details : - what happens to the watch (only opened? dismantled to check part per part? serviced?) - who runs the process - how do they manage the tricky things that aren't even documented in MWO per lack of evidences in Omega Archives, to date - how do they manage the "debated topics" - @ndgal gave some good examples above - how do they cover eventual damages resulting from the operations (imagine the radium flying off those Alpha hands...) ... I won't submit any of my watches. I have the legacy extract for each and when you have the watch in hand you can feel it hasn't been messed up - so far, I'm fine with that. To me it feels more like a pseudo-reassurance for a wealthy buyer/investor with no single clue. That's not the kind of people I use to sell my watches to
Well, according to the formal Omega definition, my Watchco Seamaster 300 is authentic, and not a franken as some people thought.
Apparently Longines does this also but I don’t know if people use the service very much. The process is described on the same page where they tell you how to get an EoA. Of course the CoA is not free.
For those who read french, here's some communication in a local newspaper : https://www.laliberte.ch/news-agenc...-dans-le-marche-des-montres-d-occasion/538012
If Omega really wants to reach out to the ( " SpeedyTuesday " ) community, they could set up a documented service for vintage pieces and inform people as most Omega wearers don't realize their tiny pieces will be replaced by modern counterparts... Plus -points for Omega though for returning a serviced watch with all old parts after a service !
If the near universal advice here is not to send nice vintage omegas to Biel for servicing it's hard to trust that they would do a worthwhile job worth the fee outside of what is already offered with the extract. If I were omega I would outsource this to OF to perform.
Interesting article, I don't see how the OCF is a step in the certified pre-owned watches market as Watches need to be older than 30 years old, most Watches I saw sold as certified pre-owned watches where new, max 20 years old.
Yep, the fine print is that the watch must be sent in for service in order to qualify for the authentication. It sounds more to me like Omega is just trying to convince more vintage enthusiasts to send their watches in - hopefully they've rethought their views on how to service valuable old timepieces. Me, I won't be going for this anytime soon...
So you will send your patina 2915 to Omega, you will get a nice polish and some new/vintage parts such as hands with working lume on it with proof from Omega that the watch is legit. Kidding aside. A lot of Speedies are with parts that are put together these days. It will be really difficult job for Omega to certify every single part. I think this service will be great for some really rare pieces like vintage platinum constellations and caliber 33.3 with watches with fancy dials etc. The price will also withhold people a bit, so I think they only get this request automatically for more valuable pieces. I have seen a B.S. certificate from the most respected company out there, stating complete nonsense (considering parts that where service parts, while they stated something completely different) So it all depends a bit what's really stated on such a paper. Imho the new extract of the archive is a quite a step down so I not really enthusiastically anticipating this new service.