Some interesting developments lately – someone noticed that several Omni faceting machines have been posted for sale on ebay, one of them labelled the “Patriot Faceting Machine”. These are being given outrageous prices – Buy It Now for $3,199. I believe I bought my original Omni-e for $2,200.
There is also mention of an “Omni Patriot” faceting machine at the Aussie Sapphire website. Read their full article as there is an interesting comment about the “poorly finished machining” and that “the problems were in our opinion major not minor.” His comments were directed at the original swing-arm Omni-e. Please note that the review date of his comments is May, 2010 – fully 3 years after I received my Omni-e faceting machine and discovered the basic fit, finish and engineering flaws.
Jersey Instrument’s website has not been updated which I find curious. I would have expected the manufacturer to be the first to start the marketing and spreading the news of the new machine. It’s also curious that there are no photos anywhere of this “Omni Patriot” – all the photos outside my own are copies from Jersey Instruments. Even the ad text for the ebay sales are just cut-and-pasted from Jeff Graham’s self-serving “review” of the Omni-e.
I guess things will unfold in time. I hope that the Omni Patriot is a better machine than the original Omni-e, but I believe that the Omni Patriot will be a re-packaged Omni-e with all the accompanying flaws, poor manufacturing and lack of execution. Kind of like putting lipstick on a pig.
I hope that more people are not going to be in the same position as I was, and I hope they have enough sense to test out the machine before putting their money down. There are many other much better and more affordable options that will actually do what they are supposed to, which is facet gemstones accurately.