zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

Hewybaby Posts: Re: SomeThoughts in an older butprobably familiar format...

What say you?
As I said I have no higher respect in the collecting community than I do for James. And I also have great respect for you too Sam. However, whenever someone says A and the other person says Z, I fully expect the truth to be neither A or Z but somewhere inbetween. That is if one can determine thetruth.

I suspect that not all of the lots which you had assumed to be "offered by Omega" lots were actually of that source. However, I do believe that some lots probably were and the lots you identified above are the most likely lots to have, at the very least, required some assistance from Omega in order to have them available for bidding in the Omegamaniaauction.

A number of the more publically visable members of the Omega collecting community have been aware that for the past couple of years Marco Richon has been a bidder [and often winning bidder] on a number of eBay auctions for some pretty uncommon, desireable and often pricey pieces. It's not a secret. It's always been the assumption within those aware of this, that Mr. Richon was purchasing these items for the Omega Museum or perhaps for his own collection. Neither of which cause me any moral/ethical concerns at all. In fact, it may well be that multiple items of the same type were acquired via this method so that Omega could determine which was the best piece to retain for the Museum while the others would be "disposed of" at an appropriate time. I don't have any significant moral/ethical issues with that either.

Antiquorum may well have been the method Omega choose to dispose of these "excess" items. I don't have any moral/ethical worries about that either. However, if the above is the case, if Omega was actively bidding on items they were offering... I understand that it does raise moral/ethical red flags. Shill bidding is rampant in auctions from the local estate auctions to the highest stakes auctions conducted by the big auction houses. It would be disappointing if it came to be proved to be the case that Omega was involved in such bidding [to my knowledge it hasn't been proved], but I am not sure I would find it especially surprising, as I have said in previous posts on this and related topics.

Once again and always, let the buyer [and bidder] beware. Think before you bid, not after, is typically the bestpolicy.

-- Chuck
Thanks for the response, Chuck
You're welcome Sam!
One of my comments above was that no one on TZ hadreplied.
I guess I missed that comment Sam. Sorry.
Stan Sirody just did, with a glowing recommendationof how talented Antiquorum is.
Well, Stan is a moderator over at TZ if I remember correctly. And Antiquorum owns TZ. On the other hand I don't have any doubt that Antiquorum is talented. But so many No.1's and otherwise nigh impossible to obtain watches acquired and offered at the same time without any assistance from Omega? The odd's would seem long to me.
I don't like having reasonable questions ignored.
TZ moderators are in the habit of ignoring reasonable queries posted to them. It's nothing new. As for the TZ Peanut gallery ignoring your queries... They are probably cowed by TZ Moderator's recent censoring of posts and threads. Few people seek to get banned from posting.
I am not accusing Antiquorum or Omega of any wrongdoing, nor am I particularly angry or upset. I am somewhat disappointed that my usual cynicism has been reaffirmed. I am disappointed in the lack of transparency in the auction process, and disappointed Antiquorum did not make available online the information provided on site bidders regarding Omega's purchases.
It is unsettling isn't it?
About these lots . . .

"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong as when you find a trout in the milk." Henry David Thoreau,1817-1862
[bewildered look]
How do we know Antiquorum didn't own the unlabeledlots?
I don't believe we do know, nor can we know whom owned those lots.

I do not know if Omega or Antiquorum did anything immoral or unethical [much less illegal] with regards to the Omegamania auction. Shill bidding is generally considered "sleezy" by most people though. I don't know if any occured at Omegamania or not.
As I have observed, there is an Antiquorum auction next weekend. It will be interesting to see what the outcomeis.
As the ancient Chinese curse goes: “May you live in interesting times.”...

I'm sure many people will be watching.

-- Chuck

P.S. The translator does basic HTML well, but tablesare a complete washout. [sigh]...