What you get for your money
US$75, and you find out what you're actually holding.
Not a guess off the dial. A written identification of the movement in your watch, with every fact traced back to the page of the Omega factory catalogue it came from — so you can check my work instead of taking my word for it.
Why not just get it from Omega?
You can, and for some watches you should. But it's worth knowing what you'd be buying, because it isn't the same thing.
Omega's Extract of the Archives is a provenance record. It looks up your case number in their production register and tells you what left the factory in that case and when it was delivered. Collectors consistently report it costing around US$150 and taking roughly three months. And for many pre-1960 references the archive simply has no entry — in which case they refund the fee and send you nothing at all. Three months to find out they can't help.
Mine answers a different question, and for most people it's the more useful one: what is in this watch right now? Because a fifty-year-old Omega has usually been apart at least once, and what left the factory and what's in the case today are frequently not the same watch.
| Omega Extract of the Archives | Watch Breaker Movement ID | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | ≈ US$150 | US$75 |
| Wait | Around three months | One day |
| Answers | What left the factory in that case | What is in the watch now |
| Pre-1960 watches | Often no record — fee refunded, nothing issued | Covered: the parts catalogues start in 1954 |
| Tells you if movement and case are married | Only by inference, if there's a record | Yes — that's the main event |
| Tells you the metal and the gold weight | No | Yes, from the hallmarks and your scale reading |
| Sources shown | Not itemised | Volume and folio cited on every line |
| You send | The watch, or documented case details | Six phone photos and a weight |
Omega's pricing and turnaround as reported by collectors on Omega Forums and WatchUSeek, 2025–26. Omega sets its own prices and I don't speak for them — check with them directly before deciding.
If your watch is a valuable, well-documented reference and you want factory paper for resale, get the extract — it's the document the market recognises. If you want to know what you're holding before you spend money on it, that's me: a fraction of the price, and an answer tomorrow.
What's actually in the report
- The calibre, identifiedNot "a vintage Omega automatic" — the number, from the bridge stamp, the layout, the jewel count and the plate designation. If two calibres are candidates, you get both and what separates them.
- Whether the movement and case belong togetherThe single biggest question in vintage Omega, and the one that moves the price most. Case reference, movement, and whether the parts inside match what the catalogue says should be there.
- The date, and how confident it isFrom the serial, cross-checked against the published tables — and I'll show you where those tables disagree with each other, because they do.
- The metal, and the gold in itSolid gold, gold-capped, gold-plated or steel, read from the hallmarks — then the fine-gold weight worked out from your scale reading. Most people never find out this number and it's often the biggest one on the page.
- The dial: factory or refinishedA refinished dial can halve the value of an otherwise good watch. What I can see from your photographs, and what I can't.
- Wear, graded, with photographsWhat's worn, what's replaced, what's missing, and what it will cost to put right.
- The three valuesWhat it's worth as a running watch, what it's worth broken for parts, and what it's worth as scrap metal. Sometimes those come out in a surprising order.
- Every source, citedCatalogue volume and folio on each line, so a watchmaker, a buyer or a valuer can follow it back to the printed page.
What a citation actually looks like
Here's a real fragment, using real data from my own copies. Say your movement is stamped 563 on the bridge.
- Calibre
- 563Plate designation: 27.90 RA SC PC CAL CORR AM 17 pierres
- Diameter
- 27.90 mm
- Height
- 5.00 mm
- Beat
- 19,800 A/h
- Jewels
- 17
- Shock system
- Incabloc
- Marked on
- Bridge
- Source
- GF 620-3, calibre 563 folio 2
| Part no. | Component | |
|---|---|---|
| 563.1000 | Plate | |
| 550.1001 | Barrel bridge | ← 550 family |
| 563.1003 | Train wheel bridge | |
| 550.1005 | Pallet cock | ← 550 family |
| 563.1026 | Rotor with axle | |
| 563.1030 | Balance cock | |
| 470.1101 | Crown wheel | ← 470, older still |
All lines: GF 620-3, calibre 563 folio 2, printed in section.
Now here's why that's worth twenty-five dollars. Look at those part numbers. The plate and the bridges are 563 parts, but the barrel bridge and pallet cock are 550 parts and the crown wheel is a 470 — because the 563 was built on the older 550, which was built on the 470 before it. That lineage is printed in the catalogue, and it tells you two things a serial-number website never can:
- Which replacement parts will actually fitA 550 barrel bridge in a 563 is correct and factory-intended. A part from a different family in the same slot is not, and it means the movement has been made up from a parts bin.
- Whether you're looking at a 563 or a 565They are the same movement to the eye — same 27.90 mm, same 5.00 mm height, same 19,800 beat. The difference is the jewel count: 17 against 24. The 565 is the better movement and the more wanted one, and the only way to tell without pulling the rotor is to read the bridge properly. Sellers get this wrong constantly, in both directions.
That last one is the whole business, really. An informed buyer pays the right price — and sometimes finds the thing being sold as the cheap one is the expensive one.
How I grade what I tell you
Not every fact is known the same way, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Every line in the report carries one of these:
Where two catalogues contradict each other, the report says so and cites both. There are 208 such corrections recorded in the database so far, and they exist because the printed record is not always right.
How it works, and when you pay
- Send the photosSix phone photographs and the total weight on a kitchen scale, to id@watchbreaker.com. The six shots are listed here. Nothing gets posted, nothing leaves your hands.
- I tell you whether I can answer itIf your photographs won't support a confident identification, I say so — and that costs you nothing. No invoice, no hard feelings, and I'll tell you which shot to retake if it's fixable.
- You pay after, not beforeIf I can answer it, I send a Payoneer request for US$75. You'll have had the answer to the question "can this be done" before any money moves.
- The report lands the next dayWritten, cited, with the photographs marked up. Yours to forward to a seller, a buyer, a watchmaker or a valuer.
This is an identification from your photographs, not an appraisal — I haven't had the watch in my hands. I give ranges, not single figures. If I think yours is worth buying I'll say so separately, which makes me an interested party, so get a second opinion before you sell to anyone. Full terms.
The first ten reports are free. In exchange for permission to publish them here as case files, so the eleventh customer can see exactly what US$75 buys before they spend it. The terms, plainly — including a free-for-life pass for watch YouTubers.
Questions
What if I just want to know if it's real?
Then send the photos and ask — that one's free. The free answer covers the calibre, roughly when it was made, whether the case is gold, and whether it's worth more whole, in parts or as metal. The US$75 is only for when you need it in writing, cited, to show somebody else.
Why is it so cheap?
Because the expensive part is already done. The catalogues are bought, the folios are photographed, and 4,047 part numbers and 11,675 fitment records are in a database I can query in seconds. What you're paying for is the twenty minutes I spend reading your movement, not the two years spent building the library.
Do you buy watches?
Sometimes, and I'll tell you if yours is one I'd want — but I'll tell you separately from the report, and the report won't change because of it. If I'm interested in buying, I'm an interested party, and you should get a second opinion. That's in the terms for a reason.
What if you get it wrong?
Everything is graded and cited so you can check it. If a line marked factory sheet turns out to be wrong, tell me — I'll correct the database, publish the correction, and refund you. That's how the 208 corrections got there in the first place.
Watch Breaker is an independent identification specialist and parts dealer and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Omega SA or the Swatch Group. Omega is a trademark of Omega SA. "Extract of the Archives" is a service of Omega SA; prices and turnaround quoted here are as reported by collectors, not by Omega, and may have changed. Reports are identifications from photographs, graded by confidence; not an authentication of record and not an appraisal. Terms.