This may not come as a surprise, but I do not read German-language newspapers on a regular basis. Dial of a vintage Omega Constellation, pie pan. I am, however, keenly interested in a scandal involving the Swatch Group and a "Frankenwatch" Speedmaster which was sold at auction a while back for over $3 million. I won't go into all the minute details here, but the punchline is that Swatch Group bought the watch only to discover that some of its own employees may have been part of a conspiracy to assemble a watch which would be quite rare and important if it were authentic. But, apparently, it was not authentic. When the deception was uncovered, various people who were part of the "inside job" lost employment and, reportedly, legal authorities were notified in Switzerland. I originally wrote about this in 2023, you can read my coverage here.
There's been excellent reporting on this matter from many sources (see, for example, this story from Bloomberg). Notable among them is a German-language newspaper: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ). One thing I've discovered is that it is very challenging to gather information about the Swiss watch industry if you are not "on the ground" in Switzerland. Fortunately, NZZ is interested in the "Speedmaster Affair" and, since they have reporters in Switzerland, they often publish more details than I could ever obtain. Out of curiousity, I checked to see if they had updated their reporting and, sure enough, they have. So what more can we learn (note: I relied on Google Translate to provide an English version of the original text)?
The NZZ article reports that the head of Swatch Group, Nicolas Hayek, is confounded by how authorities have handled his company's complaint. NZZ reports that the public prosecutor's office in Bernese Jura-Seeland has made very limited progress in following up on the scandal. I quote NZZ: "The regional public prosecutor's office, where Omega filed the complaint, tried three times in the past eighteen months to pass the case on to the public prosecutor's office for economic crimes." NZZ further reports that this is a very unusual path for a criminal complaint to take.
The public prosecutor in question made the following observation when asked for an explanation by NZZ: "The longer an investigation takes, the clearer its contours become". A vintage Omega watch. Now, I know little about criminal investigations beyond what I've learned from television programs and movies. But I thought it was always best to follow leads before the "trail goes cold." I thought the window to solve a murder was 48 hours long and, after that, cracking the case was much, much harder. And what about that old chestnut "justice delayed is justice denied"?
I digress. NZZ did provide some new information regarding the state of the case. Omega's investigation suggests that 300 watches and watch components were stolen from their warehouse and archives. A grand total of five parties supposedly perpetrated the scandal: three internal to Omega and two outsiders. The total damage to Swatch Group was estimated at $6.3 million. And, even though the case was, in some sense, floundering in the public prosecutor's office, some progress has been made. According to NZZ "release of documents, house searches and the evaluation of seized electronic items" as well as "initial interviews" have all taken place.
The real risk with this kind of delay is that there may be more victims while the wheels of justice slowly grind away. According to NZZ, the two external parties are still exchanging watches with others on the secondary market. And, Swatch Group shareholders worldwide (including the Hayek family) do deserve some financial restitution, if at all possible. One thing is for certain, much of the Speedmaster Affair story is still untold.
My book on the history of Rolex marketing is now available on Amazon! It debuted as the #1 New Release in its category. You can find it here.
Talking about the German language, which is no longer easy because it's not used as an international language,. Because I have done a Bachelor in Linguistics program and selected the German-based language, that's why I have a bit of knowledge for these things. Well, if someone needs accounting service Plano, which is based in the USA, then he will definitely not be on their waiting list. Now come to the point, the language barrier is more than anything.
Late last year, I had a chance to visit a truly special space in the United States: the workshop of an independent American watchmaker. Lovell Hunter showing components on a bench in his workshop. Photo Credit: Lovell Hunter's YouTube channel. I've written about Lovell Hunter before, I posted my first story about Lovell right here on Horolonomics. There, I described his career as a watchmaker for Breitling and his decisions to strike out on his own and launch an independent brand called Love Hunter Watches. Lovell and I have kept in touch since then and he periodically reaches out to share updates on the progress of his watch design as well as other updates regarding his brand. At one point, Lovell invited me to visit his workshop, which is located in Connecticut's Naugatuck River Valley. The location couldn't be more appropriate given that "Brass City," aka Waterbury, is located on the northern portion of the valley. Brass has historically, and presen...
An email from a Yale librarian arrived earlier this summer. A modernist building on Yale's campus. She wrote that she didn't know where one of the watches was, but she was working on finding it. I simultaneously felt disappointment and concern. I was disappointed because I hoped to arrange a visit with the truant timepiece. I was concerned because I couldn't help but wonder if someone had made off with it. My concern faded after a second email a number of days later. The watch had been located. It was stored in a more secure location than other archival materials. And, my contact at Yale said I was welcome to see it. Let's back up a bit. I periodically look for Rolex archival materials in libraries. My interest stems from the materials I previously found in a UK archive, materials which served as the basis for my book on Rolex's marketing history. It was a good while ago that my archival searches surfaced the Rolex watch in question. I just hadn't taken ...
An AI generated image of a trendline overlaying the image of a watchshot. Back in April, I posted a summary of preowned watch price discounts from a major online retailer. The discounts were larger than I expected, averaging roughly 25%. This week, I received an email from the same retailer about another discount event, so I thought I would update the April exercise. Bottom line up front: the discounting continues but it may have slowed slightly. Let's get into the details. Chrono24's Chronopulse price index (disclosure: I participated in development of this index) shows that prices did increase by 6/10 of one percent heading into the beginning of May. Screenshot of some of the most recent market data from Chrono24's ChronoPulse. Aside from the traditional end-of-year holidays, graduation season in May / June is a high point for watch purchases as friends and relatives gift timepieces to new graduates. For this reason, the May uptick in prices may have been part...
Talking about the German language, which is no longer easy because it's not used as an international language,. Because I have done a Bachelor in Linguistics program and selected the German-based language, that's why I have a bit of knowledge for these things. Well, if someone needs accounting service Plano, which is based in the USA, then he will definitely not be on their waiting list. Now come to the point, the language barrier is more than anything.
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