Just going through a couple of forgotten boxes and came across an old Omega pocket watch Normally I would not have bothered with it but for an inscription in French and then another saying it was cased by the Illinois Watch Company USA The Omega movement is numbered 5062514 which indicates a date of around 1916 and after a quick wind its ticking away merrily Question is - were there a lot of Omega movements cased in the USA at that time
No, but the original case was probably scrapped and the movement was reinstalled into the Illinois case. Plenty of interchangeable movements from the pocket watch days regardless of the brand.
Maybe, maybe not. Pre-1920's, when a man bought a pocket watch in the US, they chose the movement and case separately. Omega was just like every other watch company, they sent a lot of uncased movements here. The Illinois case is quite possibly original. There is really no way to know for sure as jewellers carried different brands of cases that were interchangeable. Only the very high end Swiss manufacturers (Patek, V&C, etc.) sent fully finished products here. Those were generally 18K solid gold cased and very expensive. For Omega, a signed Omega case almost always means a non-US market watch. Once wristwatches became fashionable for men after WWI, the market began to change. More Swiss companies designed their own cases. Hope this helps, gatorcpa
I confirm that at this period, Omega sent movements which were wased for North america. One could really personalise it (case, dial etc...). Here are some pages of a canadian catalog of that period explaining the choice : A lot of choice when you cross calibers, cases etc... :