Omega

SamJH
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I need to clarify

"If I understand you correctly, what you are saying is that these movements were probably made well before October 1964 and were shipped en-masse to the testing lab and that it then took until Feb 1966 for the lab to complete the testing of the 100,000 uncased  movements.  The movements then had to be cased and shipped by Omega.  So, actually we have no knowledge of when they were made - they certainly were not made in 1966 as the Omega database suggests - Omega would have just stamped the 24 million serial numbers on the movements prior to testing and probably sometime in 1964 (or maybe even earlier). "

Not exactly.  I don't know when ANY Omega watch movements were manufactured, true. However, I doubt that these particular movements were all made "well before" October 1964.  I simply don't know and don't have enough information to make an informed speculation. 

It seems unreasonable that during the prime of the Swiss watch industry that a testing laboratory would take 15 months to test 100,000 watches .  So,  that is not what I was saying.  Consider that Omega was producing several million watches annually, and a good portion of those were being chronometer tested -- as were a fair number of movements manufactured by others in the watch industry.  Rather, I believe Omega sent watches as they were completed in smaller batches and they were tested within a shorter time period.  You could be correct, but I believe the remark in Journey Through Time is that certificates were issued throughout the time period . 

What I am saying is that:

1) Omega put serial numbers on all watch movements at the time of manufacture, which is unknown and the manufacture date, to my knowledge, never been disclosed to the public on any wide scale. 

2) The date of completion of chronometer testing , which is obviously after manufacture, may be known. 

3) The date of shipment from Omega to the sales agent and the country of the sales agent is generally available. 

We don't know when ANY Omega movement was manufactured.   We only know one or both of the two dates above. 

I have speculated that if the serial number charts are 100% accurate , it implies that Omega manufactured, tested and stored movements for at least a year prior to use, but I have no idea of any specifics about how much time lay between manufacture and testing. 

It appears that the gap from testing to casing and shipment, based on this speculation, was at least 13 months (October 1964, the first testing certificate, until January 1966, the date the first 24,000,000 serial numbers were shipped).  I doubt the serial number charts are that accurate, but the point about which I am speculating remains.  Omega stored movements for a fairly long time before use, particularly chronometer tested movements. 

I have said certain very limited things based on the knowledge available and applying some logic.  I have made one speculation based on serial number charts I believe to be less accurate than the speculation implies.  I make no claim about any further knowledge of dates of manufacture or periods required for testing. 

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