They have to be kidding, it is $350 from Watchtime or Omega.

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OMEGA - A Journey through Time (Hardcover)

by Marco Richon (Author)
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Tempted to buy one... not for $600+ though!

 

See the first line in this thread.

 

http://www.watchtime.com/shop/books/omega-a-journey-through-time/

It's actually $380 now, but it is avaliable in English again. I think at one point, the English edition was out of print.
gatorcpa

 

Honestly Omega needs to put it on the Apple iBook store as a digital download, the reality is this book is not about profit, it costs $380 because its a detailed picture laden book that is out there as a marketing and collecting promotional pool, not as a means of making money for Swatch, to that end, they could make it a $10 digital download, sell thousands of copies, and get more people reading about vintage Omegas.

 

The same could be said for any "coffee table" book.

You forget that is that this is the same group that charges $80 to look up a serial number and print it on some high grade paper, rather than sending an email, and that that took away collectors' ability to see valuable information pertaining to original selling prices and alternative metals under the "Product Information" heading on the Omega database.

I agree it is all about marketing and promotion. Marketing to people who have $380 to spend on a nice book instead of $10 on a digital download.

We collectors are little more than nuisances to Omega. Longines and other Swatch companies are far more collector friendly.

Take care,
gatorcpa

 

The $80 is likely still to cover staff costs, like I remember last time Dennis did it on his Seamaster, they had to verify the photos he sent them of the watch and serial number, and paying any competent employee to do anything in Switzerland is going to cost $50/hour. Thing is they know that their history is important, as is evident by how much their focusing on items like the new CK2998 re-issue homage, the ploprof, and the SM300 elements being reproduced in the Planet Ocean ceramic lines, that vintage foundation is not profitable per-se but they are no doubt aware that its the difference between brands like Rolex, Patek, and AP that have been rolling their historical models out for half a century, and brands that ignore their past.

We may be a financial drain directly on the company, but we're also an important driver of prestige and historical relevance for the current models and for that reason I think they'll no better than to overlook us completely.

 

Longines will still send an e-mail for free from their museum. The question is whether the vintage department is in customer service or marketing. Longines has chosen customer service, Omega has chosen marketing. I'm sure there is very little difference in the actual cost of searching records between Omega and Longines.

I just think that different watch companies view vintage collectors of their brands differently. Some companies gently, or not so gently, try to convert them into new watch customers. I would put Omega in that group, along with Rolex, JLC and Patek. Other companies see vintage collectors more as junior brand ambassadors and are more likely to open up their records as a courtesy. I would put Longines, Eterna and Rado in this category. From my experience, Omega and JLC used to be in the latter category, now they are in the former.

Not that there's anything wrong with that,
gatorcpa

 

Omega should just put the vintage movement database in searchable form and charge money to access the database - either a per search fee, a monthly fee, a yearly fee or a lifetime all you can eat fee. This would likely make it both more profitable for swatch/omega and more accessible for the vintage collectors.

 

I'm assuming you are talking about digitising the books matching case serial numbers, references, movement serial numbers and production dates. If so, I'm in full agreement.

If you are talking about charging for the information in the current vintage database, it would really need to be greatly expanded for me to want to pay for access. I appreciate it for what it is, a starting point for research.

Take care,
gatorcpa

 

No I am referring to the case and movement serial numbers not the vintage database. This seems to me to be a simple enough task that can easily be accomplished and would be a huge boon to the omega collector community.