Posted by That Sweden have a lot of original Omega 2914 Railmaster and 2915/2998 Speedmaster compared to it’s size is well-known, or should I say had since many of them have been bought and brought out of the country by international collectors during the past 15 years…
Many years ago you could find a Railmaster 2914 on auction which remained unsold or sold at starting bid…
Time changes – these days it’s not easy to find any of them and the price is easily 5x or 10x higher…
We all know that in 1957 when Omega released their “Holy Trinity”, the 2913 Seamaster 300 was a part of the release – hence the name “Trinity”…
What might be lesser known is that not many 2913 Seamaster 300 is to be found here in Sweden. Mine I found in France many years ago…
I always wondered a bit about this and think I figured out why…
Today, scuba diving or skin-diving as it was called back in the 1950’s is quite popular! Swedish people like to travel to far and warm places and also like to go on “active” vacations such as scuba diving…
But this was not always the case – back in the 1950’s, skin-diving was not very popular here in Sweden… Which is logical – travel to far places were not as easy as it is today and here in the Eastern sea it is cold 10 months of the year and the water is not very visible so you can’t see much – why would one like to dive here?!
I do not have the Swedish Omega catalogue from 1957, but I do have the Swedish catalogues from 1958 and 1959.
In the 1958 catalogue, the 2913 Seamaster 300 is not included, the 2914 Railmaster and the 2915 Speedmaster are but the Seamaster 300 is not…
Not until 1959 Omega included the 2913 Seamaster 300 in the Swedish catalogue. Most likely due to the lack of interest of skin-diving in the market.
A bit surprising since Sweden always been big on Omega and on steel “sports” watches. Sweden even have a couple of waterproof models specific for the Swedish market, such as the Officer and the Suverän…
Even after the introduction of the Seamaster 300 in the Swedish market, I suspect it was not very popular as both the 14755 and the 165014 are also hard to find here…
The 165024 is a bit more common, but still not an easy target in the market…
I find it interesting to see the local differences due to the culture environment and how it reflects on watches!
In today’s society it easy to forget how it was, as everything is reachable with a few clicks on your phone, regardless of where in the world…
Stay tuned for more market specific observations…
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