Swatch X Omega

I saw someone earlier in the thread sniffing at Casio

That was probably me Bread. ☺️ I was much more sniffing at the so called "watch experts"(bugger all of them are. Nearly all newbie wideboy horse traders) talking about Casio as "god tier" to cynically make them seem more grounded and living in the real world by namechecking a "cheap" brand aimed at those in the 30-40 years old bracket. Before the watches for fun and profit hype took off the same BS on a smaller scale was going on years ago about brands like Seiko and Vostok, and Swatch too.

Casio were and are the mainstream quartz watch. The G-Shock concept was one of the big innovations in watches of the last century and in the 80's and 90's Casio was king and as you note even today are still in the minds of those under 30.

It could also more insulate them from the inevitable grey values market reset and just the general fashion changes that occur over time. AP's RO is "In" at the moment, it was pretty much nowhere on the radar three years ago. IWC were once riding high and are near invisible today. Panerai were hype central for a time too. Further back it was Brietling and TAG.

Models like the Sub and Speedy were always solid background "good watches" largely immune to fashion trends down the years(up until prices went daft tthey had always been my two main goto models when non watch people asked me what to get). Now Subs are front and centre and Speedies are a bit of a mess of "special editions".

IMHO Rolex would prefer they went back to always solid background watches selling a million a year, without the hype, and with the ability of actula customers to buy them at retail. Grey prices do little for Rolex and the lack of supply is a negative for actual retail customers who will become jaded and peak fashion always results in jadedness anyway.

Omega's luxury end will keep selling, with only the "true collectors" getting twitchy about the Swatch thing and they'll get over that too. The Swatch tie in massively expands their market and marketing and leaves the door open to others from the Omega range and other Swatch brands. Plus they're a lot cheaper to make and volume prodution likely means a decent twist on profits too. Plus they can gear up new models much more quickly than with mid and high end mechanicals.

For the craic I went on ebay to look at actual auction results on these things and ah jaysus... 😮😀

Now that's a brace of them, but the general current "value" appears to be around a grand each. It seems the Sun, Moon and Mars versions have a premium above that.

The Power of the New. The new iPhone/Apple product effect. As OmegaSwatch, sorry Gene 😜 notes same for runners and all sorts of consumer stuff out there. And yep it'll get Swatch a fair chunk of cash into their tills and have some spillover into other models in their range.

Now I think it's daft. Many would, but as we've seen over the last few years it's not just limited to cheap placcy fashion stuff. You see similar daftness with some women's handbags* and other fashion items. At one time the "values" of pashmina(sp?) scarves were going nuts. No doubt there would be those who look down on people paying a grand for a placcy Swatch who are willing to put down what ten, fifteen times retail?(I can't keep up) because they just have to have a plain looking Rolex that has a tacky dial that also happens to be kinda, sorta the same colour as Tiffany blue. But isn't. It's an investment y'know... Well it was if you bought it at retail.

There's now queer as folk as they say.

*on the you're paying for quality front; I've a book about the place detailing Italian mafia types and their operations and a part of that are fakes. Whole chapter devoted to them. One of the ways to spot some of the fake handbags and shirts and the like was they were better quality and more handmade than the real deal. Plus some of the Italian companies when they were stretched for stock supplied real labels on the quiet to some of these mafia outfits to help with production. Another example was a guy who was a dressmaker and a mafia type asked him to make up something slinky for him. he dressmaker assumed it was for this guys bit on the side because the measurements were smaller than this guy's wife who he'd met. A month later his daughter was watching some US awards show and started shouting for her da to come and watch. And there was some famouse celeb wearing the Houte Couture get up he had knocked out on his kitchen table.

Omega certainly seem to think they are, or want/wanted to inhabit the same space on wrists and perceptions. QV the cringeworthy James Bond exchange of Craig's first outing as the the titular hero; Rolex? No, Omega. Niiice. I feel dirty now... 😁 Now when that flic came out in what 07? Their prices weren't too far apart and Swatch was positioning Omega as their "mid tier luxury brand"(Breguet/Blancpain as their "high end"), firmly having Rolex in their sights and getting a piece of that pie(IWC and Panerai also inhabited that segment back then). Slapping one on Jimmy Bond's wrist was one of their opening salvos and no doubt an expensive one.

Now things have changed a lot in the interim. IWC and Panerai are nowhere, Omega have stayed roughly the same with their various edition Speedies and Seamasters, RRP prices have gone up across the board and in the last five years or so Rolex grey market prices have gone insane in the membrane. The whole hobby has gone far more mainstream, youtubed and insta hyped and what men are willing to spend has also gone up quite considerably. Patek, Lange, AP, VC and the like were on few radars back then, but since the mid tier RRPs have gone north and Rolex grey prices have gone into orbit, many ended up in the "hang on why should I pay 20k for a secondhand Rolex when I could get into Patek, VC etc for not much more?" And could actually just walk in and buy one without offering their bare arse to the salesman and buying half the expensive trinkets in the bloody shop so they could get the nod on The List(tm), or deal with some horse trader wideboy and pay multiples of RRP, while the wideboys sell mostly to each other driving up the ponzi scheme. Of course now the same VC's and Pateks of this world have been sucked into that black hole too.

So for the average collector, even the very well heeled one looking to get into such pieces and the hype and the instalikes too, the market IMHO has gone too rich, too crazy. This is were I think the Swatch group angle with Omega and Swatch is very clever and why I reckon they're distancing themselves from this arms race and almost certain deflating bubble.

So you're an average punter out there hoovering up the 'Tube and Insta watch scene, but you can only look on for the most part(ages ago I went into the Pride and Pinion subreddit and the vast majority of guys watches pictured were cheap and cheerful Seikos, Chinesium or "god tier" Casios). Maybe you're someone who got into that higher end, spent big chunks of your hard earned and now are wondering what's next and the sniff of ponzi is a concern, never mind the ever increasing buy in. In a few weeks Rolex will be releasing new models. Well when I say new, it's Rolex here, so a slightly different colour bezel and different writing on a dial, slightly different case size. AKA a rehash of the last forty years, but there will be hype. OHMIGOD, the rehaut has a slightly different finish!! And you still won't be able to walk into an AD and buy the bloody things for all the flippers.

Along comes the OmegaSwatch Speedy; in loads of colours so mucho choice and can build a collection, two well known and respected brand names on the dial, mainstream hype near unheard of in watches(I'll bet this will be bigger and more mainstream than Rolex's coming new model rollout), hard to get for the moment, queues around the block all on social media, top level Instabait likes, likely decent supply coming in a month or two, a good chance IMHO of more of the same internal homages to top end Swatch group stuff, non pretentious*, no need of reference numbers and all that nonsense, fashionable and cheerful and likely to kick off a wide community out there, younger, hipper and with more women, who actually own the things and it just knocked the Rolex hype off the top of the charts. For 250 quid. IMHO this is a master stroke from the Swatch group.

*Earlier I saw in my youtube feed the Oirishman in Venice come up and he was bemoaning all this hype and this is the same man pimping Franklin Mint tat that ticks for thousands...

I doubt anyone would bother Nj, or few would see the point. The point of the watch for me is that it's plastic, cheap and cheerful, fashionable and available to more. I could see modders trying to squeeze a smooth chrono hand quartz movement into one.