Stop the bitter, acrimonious and boring discussion Omega versus Rolex...
Take a look at the Swatch Group as a whole and what they have done the past decade with Blancpain, Bréguet, Omega, Longines as the historical legacy of these brands seems to be buried!
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The 3861 bracelet is in fact sharp. I have one on my Silver Snoopy and I had to hand polish the inside of the links after they scratched the caseback. Upset wasn't the word for it.
Well the rumor is the current JLC CEO wants to buy it. He was previously the CEO of JLC, got promoted to COO of Richemont, only to be demoted back to CEO of JLC. I think the rumors are for him to save face.
I believe that Omega and Rolex have been keen competitors for a very long time.
I made the statement you are refering to based on how Omega responded through their offerings during the Quartz crisis and for a long time afterward.
Rolex basically stuck with what they were already doing throughout and since. They stayed true to the core with one exception.
Omega had nice honest movements which may or may not have been better than Rolex prior to the Quartz crisis.
Understandably Omega went with what looked like the future tech that had become dominant. Enter their Quartz movements with continued usage to this day.
Naturally Seiko were forging ahead with Quartz tech as was just about everybody else and their dog.
Omega still had mechanical movements but they moved away from "in house" and went with a variation of ETA movements. Not that there was anything wrong with that. But i do see it as a logical response to market pressures brought on by the Quartz crisis in order to maintain profitability.
The ETA movement variations continued through to the introduction of their own "in house" Co-axials.
As mentioned above. Rolex continued doing their Rolex thing and eventually dropped any further involvement with their Quartz experimentation.
Now we have Rolex going from strength to strength for all the reasons we can rationalise, including but not exclusive to marketing.
All the while increasing prices at any turn.
Others are increasing prices as well including our Omega but Omega are easily singled out for not being this, or not being that, or not enough of this, or not enough of that. Let alone too much of some other this or that.
Their line up is scattered and has been scattered for decades.
What with Chronographs of some variation in one line and or another.
Mixes of technologies not necessarily of their own origin.
Case styles of varying kinds which outwardly dilute brand identity and potential icon status with the only exception being the humble but mighty Speedy Pro. The one watch line that has barely changed appreciably until a couple of years ago except for a Saphire crystal option of one kind or another. And don't get me started on the milky ring thing. But hey, i am most satisfied with my 1861 Hesalite.
And the MoonSwatch thing that was a sugar hit for the market, but another dilution for the Omega brand as far as i can see.
There's so much to unpack in my mind around poor Omega.
I can barely remember the days when a watchmaker would happily say they think an Omega was a better watch than a Rolex.
Then that changed at some point.
All those old guys are long gone.
Oh to continue with my download of the quartz crisis. One could find a good watchmaker nearly anywhere once. Then during the 80's they stopped being a common trade because it was easier to teach people how to swap batteries, a couple of seals and give the watch a rudimentary pressure test and away you go.
The decline in the trade has continued and now it has become more centralised under the manufacturers roof.
No, i think it has been a very long down hill slide for Omega which started a number of decades ago and for one reason or another like the global economy it has accelerated. IMO.
I'm still going to pick up that White dialed Speedy Pro one day despite the random tinking as well as one of these new styled POs despite the axial movement in the bezel which i have assessed to be a feature of the model which doesn't impact the watch's function.
But like many others i will most likely seek out a good used watch. Which by extension, impacts sales of new units.
You’re not wrong but it’s worth mentioning in the 2000s especially early on there was a massive gap between MSRP and grey/used.
Around that time I remember people getting brand new pieces through a forum authorised dealer on Timezone (before this site existed) and it was like 43% of MSRP on models like the 2254.50 and non-AC Seamaster.
That actually got a fair bit tighter in the Cal 8500 era for a while before diverging again more recently.
What will happen is that the prices will come down. The alternative-making less profit as opposed to none at all-will be a great motivator.
Omega taking away my awesome AD's seller rights because a close by OB can't sell enough watches kind of sucks, though. The AD's other two stores are still good. For now.
Their catalog is fine by me. Better than a monochrome selection of watches I can't buy with outrageously priced, ugly, "special edition" that I'd never buy which is the only time they seem to venture from their normal. I mean, they completely ruined the Submariner, a lovely, proper, sport watch, in the early 2000s and have continued running it into the ground. Admittedly, Omega kind of did the same with the fully ceramic Seamaster, but it's still an elegant design and it still kept the (divisive) traditional elements.
Roles success doesn't come from selling an objectively better product, just a lot of people wanting one for the cachet. I don't think that of people here. Most here know what they want (or have wanted for a long time) and they'll wait to get it, not buy the first Rolex that comes available to "establish a relationship" with Rolex and then make a video about why they were compelled to finally move up to "luxury" watches and why they love it so much and why they've wanted one for so long.
Some of JLC desgns are interesting. I'd like to see them become independent and come out with new designs.
Omega taking away my awesome AD's seller rights because a close by OB can't sell enough watches kind of sucks, though. The AD's other two stores are still good. For now.
But all this is water under the bridge - what is important is what happens now in difficult economic times. The #1 issue is their prices - everything else is just noise.
My local AD gave up Omega in favor of selling pre-owned Rolex. The nearest OB is 150 miles away in another state, and there are no ADs in this state now at all.
Okay, so no real new insights here, just rehashing the same old narratives.
Keep in mind that Rolex did not own Aegler, who made their movements, until 2004. So the movement origin thing is a nothingburger for anyone who is informed, but of course those who swallow the whole marketing thing hook line and sinker will see it differently.
For adopting quartz, while watch collectors will say this was a mistake, and lead to the decline you speak about, the real issue was that they didn't do it fast enough. This is a classic example of not seeing a paradigm shift that was used as a prime example to me in management classes. It is the superior technology by a long ways, regardless of collectors obsessions with anachronistic mechanical movements.
Instead Omega tried to make their mechanical movements cheap enough (and thin enough) to compete with quartz, which was certainly a mistake. This lead to the 1000 series, and the better version of those in the 1010/1020 series.
What Rolex did was shift their marketing to the luxury focus, to position themselves as a high end luxury brand, which they were clearly not (and still are not IMO). It was certainly a gamble, but it worked because they outspent everyone else.
As for who makes the better movements, well if you would take the shaky 3200 series over anything Omega, I wish you luck. Regarding previous movements, before co-axial, if you look at the 2892 based 1120 compared to a 3135, having serviced them both I would personally take the 1120 every time. Going back further to Omega's pre-quartz era movements, there's little doubt that the 55X/56X series are better than what Rolex was making at the time.
But all this is water under the bridge - what is important is what happens now in difficult economic times. The #1 issue is their prices - everything else is just noise.
But all this is water under the bridge - what is important is what happens now in difficult economic times. The #1 issue is their prices - everything else is just noise.
After thinking about it a bit, I completely agree. If Omega were still selling most of their steel watches around the 5K USD range, I don’t think most would be complaining. On the flip side, if Omega shrunk the Speedmaster collection to only the Professional models, but with MSRP starting at 9K USD, people would still be unhappy.
Plus, it's raining hard.
