I think it is mainly paranoia. Watch collectors paranoia! If the collective do it we follow like sheep! I don't think knowing the serial number of a watch gets you any closer to recovering it. Some proof of ownership would be required to corroborate your claim and Omega don't have any stolen register. I guess if the watch was expensive enough someone could engrave a bridge to match and duplicate your extract of the archives?
The only real reason that makes sense is that it keeps the watch fresh to market, not traceable across the net as being passed from pillar to post.
No one has ever had a watch they legitimately purchased taken away from them by the watch police because they posted the serial number and a con artist used that maliciously to craft a scam.
If someone has an apocryphal story they heard online or through a 3rd hand source I am not interested in hearing about it. Until I see a researched and cited story where this happened I refuse to believe it ever did
AND
if by some reason there is a single instance where it did, it still does not justify the level of paranoia! It's like not leaving your house because someone was killed by an meteor in Siberian in 1926
I could see that, but if you don't give the last 3 digits you are safe from this, surely.
