Further proof: Bizzare stuff going on at Swatch Group...

For quite some time, I've been watching events with the Swatch Group in Switzerland with an increasing sense of bewilderment. Swatch Group is a huge conglomerate and, of course, is not an easy entity to get a grasp of. But still there have been a great deal of moves by the firm and it's subsidiaries that are questionable. Some of the moves which I see as dubious at best are certainly debatable, and believe me... folks have debated them with me. But a number of them are just bizarre and the fact that they are bizarre is really beyond debate... Here's a case in point... Jorge Merino Posts: N E W M o d e l - Omega Seamaster Railmaster Chronograph [May 06, 2004 - 11:12 AM] You see what's wrong with this picture? Need a hint? Apparently, they don't teach people to count by 5's accurately in Switzerland... This picture was posted by Jorge Merino who get's the press releases from many many Swiss watch firms. So this photograph came from an Omega press release. [Many thanks to Steve Waddington, moderator of the Zowie/Chronocentric Omega discussion forum for helping me relocate this post]... The other night, I was mentioning the curious case of the Tissot NASCAR chronograph while chatting on IM with Eric [Eptaz, moderator of the Omega forum over at WUS]. I had mentioned the curious inclusion of "Valjoux" on the display caseback on this watch previously, after Swatch Group takes great pains to encourage firms which use the 7750 to call the movement by it's newly bestowed "ETA 7750" name. When I noticed another major goof in this watch. Here's the picture: I took a look at the "Tachymeter MPH" bezel and said... What the F**K! Between Eric, Jeff Stein and myself, the only possible explanation that we could postulate is that perhaps someone decided to convert Kilometers into miles because 37 Miles per hour is roughly 60 KPH, and 50 MPH is roughly 80 KPH, etc.. All a Tachymetre bezel is a scale that divides the 3600 (the number of minutes (60) times the number of seconds (60) = 3,600) by the number of seconds to generate a "Units per Hour" indication. The number would be the same if measuring Kilometre's, miles, or furlongs. Why anyone would do a conversion when one is not necessary is confounding. The absurdity of this is simply mindboggling! I mean all a person has to do is look at a picture of any watch with a Bezel (that isn't laughably incorrect <-- Warning, link not for the weak of stomach!) and copy it. I mean, how difficult is that? But in this instance, like the Omega Railmaster, not only has the mistake been made, but professional watch photography been booked, taken and distributed to the press and the public, and in this instance, is pictured and remains on Tissot.ch's website: [Pictured on the left] at this very moment! Now, Tissot does have a different model pictured in the subwindow on the right, but why continue to have that fouled-up model as the main picture? Eric pointed out a post in a blog of this Tissot and a Quartz model... Guess what? The Quartz model has a mucked up bezel too! How can these watches (or even pictures of watches) with such mistakes make it to the public eye? This watch had to be designed, approved, "gone to metal", been professionally photographed, given to Marketing/Webmasters/etc. Where's the scrutiny? I'm reminded of the 1992 song by "Fresh Bush and the Invisible Man" called "Hard Times"... “Politics is higher taxes, Politics is fewer jobs, Federal regulations... Surely, Congress doin' drugs!” I don't know what the explanation is, but there is some seriously bizarre stuff going on at Swatch Group. This is nothing new, just further proof. -- Chuck P.S. Thanks again to Steve, Jeff and Eric for their input on this one.

News (to me anyway) about Ed White's Speedmaster...

Back on the 5th of September I received the following email message from Blake Bartosh... It was information new to me and I've received permission from Blake to post and host the information on my site... From: "Blake Bartosh" Date: September 05, 2006 8:47:02 AM CDT To: Chuck Maddox Subject: Ed White's Speedmaster information My father [Roger Bartosh] is in the habit of subscribing to all kinds of interesting things, and one of them was Superior Galleries' Space Memorabilia Auction catalogs.  [click on the pictures to open a full size scan in a new window] Of particular interest is the Spring 1999 catalog which lists as one of the auctions Ed White's Speedmaster.  The description identifies the NASA numbers engraved on the watch side and reverse.  Evidently the watch realized a value of $34,500 at auction.  I am saddened by the tragic event that took Ed White's life, and at the same time I am intrigued that the Hesalite crystal survived the intense heat and flames inside the Apollo 1 capsule. See the attached scans of the catalog cover, the page depicting the watch with description, and the final price realized for the watch (auction item 398).  Sorry about the quality of the auction page scan, the catalog is about an inch thick and hard to lay down on the scanner bed. Were you aware of this auction occurring? Best regards, Blake Indeed I was not aware of this auction and am a bit surprised that this watch was put up for auction. I'm not going to guess the White's rationale for selling the watch, but rather I'd suspect that either the GAO, NASA or the Smithsonian would likely have something of a claim on this watch as US property, unless it was a watch purchased by the late Mr. White. Of course if anyone has further information, I'd love to hear it. Thanks to both Roger and Blake for their efforts in sharing this information with us in the greater Omega Community. It is greatly appreciated! -- Chuck P.S. I'll post any follow-up email's I get relating to this story as comments in my blog.

2nd multiple Omega Chrono failure report in 3 days.

Stumeister Posts: Broad Arrow movement problems [Sep 10, 2006 - 10:59 AM] Just wanted to check with any of you experts out there what would be considered normal for problems with a auto chronograph. Sadly I bought a Broad Arrow in 2004 and it looks like I will be packing it up once more (the 5th time now) to send to Bienne with a problem associated with the minute chronograph hand not turning over. The watch does keep great time, but the chronograph cannot be guaranteed to work 20/20 when engaged (fails 3 to 4 times out of 20, usually in a row before if gets back on track). I have read a few lines of discussion on this forum regarding this movement line-> is there any current news from Omega that they may change this movement due to its unreliability? Or am I the lucky one that may have bought quite an expensive lemon? I replied to Stumeister's post over in TZOF. Some Thoughts... This will make the second report of multiple failures in chronographs in the past three days. The first report was made in reply to my post in this blog about Time Flies c.3303 issue by Nick Henson on Thursday, September 07, 2006 12:20:00 PM. I haven't heard back from Nick about my follow up post to Nick in the blog, so I do not know if his Seamaster Pro Chronograph sports a Valjoux 7750 or a c.33xx. I am not going to assume it's one model or another. I'm not going to count Nick's example either way until I hear from him. Unfortunately, he didn't leave me an email address to contact him directly (Blogger recorded "anonymous-comment@blogger.com" as Nick's address), I will have to hope that Nick either posts another comment or contacts me directly to clearify things. Stumeister's example was bought in 2004, fairly likely to have been produced after the remedial parts introduced in 2002 that certain people claim have elimidated or at least caused the ,,significant decline,, of problem reports. Even discounting Nick Henson's report, the c.33xx failure's sadly continue to be reported with regularity. -- Chuck