COSC certificates no longer available?.......

[rkammer]

I contacted Omega sesveral weeks ago to obtain the certificate for my SMP and just received this reply. I wonder if they mean that it's not available becauses of the age of my watch, (5 years) or just not available period. Too bad.

Dear Mr Kammer,
We thank you for your e-mail and are pleased to learn that you own an Omega Seamaster James Bond watch since five years.

Unfortunately, we regret to inform you that the COSC certificate is no longer available.

For any additional information you might require please feel free to contact our Customer Service in the U.S.A. :

The Swatch Group (US) Inc.
SG Customer Service / Omega Division
55 Metro Way
Suite #1
Secausus, NJ 07094-1905
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

With kind regards,
OMEGA Ltd
Maria Mastrodonato
Customer Service
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Website: www.omega.ch

[JBHII]

rkammer said:

I contacted Omega sesveral weeks ago to obtain the certificate for my SMP and just received this reply. I wonder if they mean that it's not available becauses of the age of my watch, (5 years) or just not available period. Too bad.

Dear Mr Kammer,
We thank you for your e-mail and are pleased to learn that you own an Omega Seamaster James Bond watch since five years.

Unfortunately, we regret to inform you that the COSC certificate is no longer available.

For any additional information you might require please feel free to contact our Customer Service in the U.S.A. :

The Swatch Group (US) Inc.
SG Customer Service / Omega Division
55 Metro Way
Suite #1
Secausus, NJ 07094-1905
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

With kind regards,
OMEGA Ltd
Maria Mastrodonato
Customer Service
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Website: www.omega.ch

Sounds like they only keep them for a limited amount of time. Probably only a couple of years. I guess I better get to work on getting the certs for all my Omegas!

John

[clepsydra]

I, too, think that furnishing the COSC certificate is a nice touch when one buys a chronometer. I've had several chronographs over the years from various makers that came with this 'added bonus', and it's always nice if one can include the cert as part of the 'package' upon sale to another watch aficionado.

We know that Rolex no longer furnishes the cert, as don't a number of other brands who offer certified chronometers. I think that fewer and fewer makers will continue to do so in the future.

But my point for commenting here is to clarify what one's getting when one receives the actual COCS certification.

What your getting is a brief 'snapshot' of what the movement in your watch did over the course of 15 days......15 days during which the movement was observed and timed in various vertical positions at three different temperatures at a very specific state of wind.

Unfortunately, the timing results of the movement at COSC won't necessarily represent what your watch will do now that it's been cased-up and is hanging on you wrist or spinning on a winder.

You know that the movements are tested sans dial, hands, date cadrature (if so equipped), and auto winding bridges and gears (if so equipped).

So, the point is, by the time the movement is brought back to the maker's facility where the final assembly of the movement is effected, and the watch is cased, a lot can happen to make the original COCS readings invalid.

Now, most (if not all) makers will retime the movement - regulate and adjust if necessary - so that your watch will comply with the -4/+6 sec/day spec of the COSC, but it may not - and often does not - comply with the movements original scores.

But here's the important factor (for me, anyway): If the movement originally passed the challenges of COSC, I know that the movement has the potential to run well within COSC specifications, and has the potential for further and fine-tuning, regulation, and adjustment.

Knowing that a movement has the intrinsic build quality that can result in the movement's capacity to meet the specs of COSC is really more important to me than the actual piece of paper that says that it once did meet those specs while it was still an unwrapped disk of plates, gears, and pinions.

[Aaron]

I think it must be a time period for the certificates as I know someone who got one recently.
Cheers Aaron