History of Omega from Société des Amis du Musée Omega (SAMO)
Here’s a site I stumbled across a while back, one of those things that fell upon the “this probably needs to be mentioned on the blog soon” pile but somehow never made it into a live post until I discovered it in my “ready list” of unused ideas just the other day when it turned out to relevant to an inquiry from a fellow vintage enthusiast.
Louis Brandt & Frere - The making of the "Labrador" Style
So without further ado, please check out this history of Omega from SAMO, the Société des Amis du Musée Omega or “Society of the Friends of the Omega Museum.” From wha tI can divine from their site SAMO is a non-profit historical society located in Bienne/Biel, Switzerland dedicated to awareness of the history of the Omega factory and the Omega brand. Unfortunately the English-language version of the website apparently hasn’t been properly kept up with with all that much energy, and even the French- and German-language versions of the site appear to have suffered and are well over a year out of date at this point. But the keystone ‘Omega History’ portions of the site remain cheerily and entirely relevant. And as far as I’m aware the site has previously gone largely unnoticed in the online collector community, so it is my pleasure to bring it to your attention here.
So if you have a few spare moments and would like to explore one of the better online accountings of Omega’s history I have come across so far, I invite you to peruse SAMO’s site for a really, really good overview of the history of what eventually became the Omega, S.A. that we are familiar with in modern times.
Omega Factory circa 1902
Lamentably, portions of the text especially towards the end have yet to be translated into English, but of course the modern collector is likely well aware of online translation tools or of collector communities frequented by multi-lingual participants. Or if you come across a particular passage that seems otherwise indecipherable, please post your question in a comment here and I’ll do my best to translate as I’m always looking for a chance to exercise my increasingly atrophying German skills.
Link: SAMO: History of “A Big Brand” (Omega)
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