zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

I was on a cruise last week and spent some time window shopping in St.Thomas (US Virgin Islands), which has historically been regarded as the duty free shopping capital of the Caribbean.

I thought you guys might be amused at some of the things the AD "educated" me about:

1. The Co-Axial chronometer was developed by George Daniel and 4 of "Omega's Best Engineers"...and they spent 12 years building it in a "secret department" within Omega.
2. The Co-Axial is the toughest, most sophisticated, most accurate, most complicated and most shock resistant movement ever made. EVER!
3. The 1957 Limited Edition (identical to current moonwatch, but with a hippocampus logo on the dial) of the Speedmaster is the first and only version of the Speedmaster the is designed for diving. I can only surmise that he fed me this tripe because I happened to be wearing a Seamaster.
4. The salesperson was a "close, personal friend" of the Vice-President of Omega.

So...at this point, I politely thanked him for his help and wandered into the next Omega AD. I was not expecting to buy anything, but lo and behold they had a brand new Gemini Speedmaster in the display case. For those not familiar, it's a blue dial/white subdial version of the Speedmaster that was released in 2005 for the 40th anniversary of the Gemini spacewalk. It's fairly rare and a striking dial combination. I asked about the price and was very disappointed with the answer. I asked if they were interested in an offer since it had been sitting there for 3 years, and was told the couldn't accept any offers since Omega has "cracked down" on Caribbean AD's selling for less than US AD's. I have no idea if this true or not.

I then wandered into the Rolex AD and looked at a GMT II and an Explorer II...when I asked about the pricing, it didn't seem great and I was told the same story..."Rolex has cracked down and we have to keep pricing in line with US AD's."

Browsed a bit more and left with my wallet intact.