Omega News: A Certificate of Authenticity program, and a new museum

For fans and collectors of Omega watches, two new announcements from the brand should hold some interest. First, in a nod to the constantly growing market for vintage watches (and with recognition of some of the inherent issues associated with purchasing said watches) Omega has introduced a new Certificate of Authenticity program.

Here’s how it works in a nutshell: if you own an Omega watch that’s at least 30 years old, you can drop it off at a boutique or send it to Switzerland, and for 800 CHF members of the Omega Heritage Team will inspect and evaluate the state of your watch, and if everything checks out, send it back with a Certificate of Authenticity. Omega hasn’t provided details on what, exactly, the Heritage Team will be looking for and what might cause them to hold off on issuing a certificate, but it seems reasonable to expect they’ll be checking mainly to ensure the watch, and its parts, are authentic. The idea here is that for valuable vintage watches, the certificate will provide peace of mind to collectors who might be interested in purchasing the watch at some point down the line.

Some might be asking how this differs from Omega’s “Extract from the Archives” service, which will continue to be available to customers. The key difference between the two services is simply that the extract provides a historical record of the production of a particular timepiece, while the new Certificate of Authenticity takes into account the watch’s current state and condition.

In other Omega news, the brand has officially opened the new location of their much loved history museum, where visitors can learn all about the brand’s long and complex record of precision timekeeping. The museum, which has operated in one form or another since 1984, not only houses important and historic Omega watches, but includes interactive exhibits on important aspects of the brand’s history, from the moon landing, to James Bond, to the Olympics. 

The museum is located in a Shigeru Ban designed building in Biel, Switzerland, and is part of La Cité du Temps, the Swatch Group’s corporate headquarters. More information about the museum can be found on Omega’s website, here.