By 2-line I mean those that read AUTOMATIC/CHRONOMETER only below OMEGA and not the usual 3-line AUTOMATIC/CHRONOMETER/OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED that one normally sees.

For example this one from the Bay:



Desmond states that these 2-liners are "seen in mid-500 movements that have 14,000 caseback nos" but is there any further explanation for that or any more detail?
Do the standard 3-liners occur during this range as well or not at all?
Do these ever occur with T for Tritium marked dials or only on SWISS MADE no T?
Is there a market specific rationale or maybe Omega's dial printer just got a batch wrong and left of the Officially Certified text but Omega still installed these dials?
Maybe this series somehow was not submitted for testing and therefore not technically "officially certified" (absence of or presence of original Chronometer Cert papers might easily prove or disprove that)?

Any thoughts or further info welcome.
TIA & best,
T.

 

Thanks for your input--I appreciate it.
It's interesting that you believe that the 2-lines were intentional. If so, why did they change and then change back? Trying something new and more minimalist, perhaps?

As for "omega would not have been sloppy to "get a batch wrong" - at this time the brand was already one of the most prestigious in the world"...

Well, all I can say to that is that I mean no offense to Omega as a quality manufacturer and certainly one of the world's leaders in timepieces both in that era and again today.

However...there are all sorts of strange things that went on in the 50s & 60s in the Swiss watch industry as far as not-exactly-standard production goes. So it is not quite outside the realm of possibility that a prestigious brand like Omega (or Rolex or JLC or IWC or Breitling or Heuer or...) would have some oddities in their repertoire as far as dial designs and non-standard text goes. And it is not unheard of for an "oops" series of dials to be sent out for sale.

In fact, as late as the 1990s, Rolex could not get their Zenith Daytona dial right until 3 tries in (and even then the "6" in the hour counter was upside down ), so a misprint winding up in a watch that was released to the general public is hardly unprecedented. Which is not to say that Omega QC is an anyway similar to Rolex QC in the 50s/60s or the 90s or that a 2-liner Connie is, in fact, a misprint...
Thanks again & best,
T.

 

Ain't it the truth!
But then, that's where a lot of the fun is of vintage collecting (for me, at least): the "why the heck did they do that?" part.
And sometimes there's more to the story than there first appeared to be, which can lead to new avenues of discovery.
But maybe not in this case.
Thanks for your insights & best,
T.

 

The reason is buried deep in one of Desmond's essays, but I cant find it currently. From memory, I think Desmond states that Omega thought that the constellation star and observatory logo were enough to identify the watch as a chronometer, but later reverted back to add the officially certified wording.

I have no doubt that all these watches were certified and one of our members will have official papers i,m sure to prove this

Cheers, paul