SwissWatchExpo, fresh from the Showcase here.
I'm going to help you make heads or tails of all these Speedmasters.
The Omega Speedmaster is one of the great iconic watches of the entire world of watches,
but where do you start?
There's so many different variations.
It's hard to even kind of get a radar on what all the differences would be and what the
choices are.
I'm going to make it simple for you.
The original Moonwatch, we call it now the Omega Speedmaster, came out in 1957.
It was not geared towards space travel or the moon or anything like that.
It's a Speedmaster because it is a racing watch.
It is made for timing road events, but it also could be used for timing anything else.
The great idea behind the Speedmaster that had never been done before was by moving the
tachymeter scale out to the bezel, instead of having it on the dial.
It really made the Speedmaster sort of a timing computer on your wrist, so that not just measuring
things off by how many seconds or minutes they took, but also being able to convert
that into units per hour.
That was the big advance on that time in the late fifties, early sixties was kind of the
golden age of Motorsports.
It was a lot easier for amateurs to be able to afford the kinds of cars that were used
in racing.
There were racing leagues all over the country.
There weren't as many enforcement of the laws about speed on public roads at the time.
Now it was a different time and it really is even reflected in the advertising of the
age for the Speedmaster.
But then of course, the giant step forward, for man and for the watch, came in the 1960s
when NASA flight-qualified the watch.
It went up against several other watches and you can read all about that.
It's a great story.
How Omega became the only watch flight-qualified by NASA for space travel, but when Buzz Aldrin
stepped out of that Apollo spacecraft onto the surface of the moon wearing his Omega
Speedmaster, it became the Moonwatch.
Incidentally, that particular one that Buzz Aldrin was wearing went missing later.
He was mailing it to the Air and Space Museum from Texas and it somehow got lost.
If you ever find that one particular Buzz Aldrin Speedmaster you'll have a real treasure
on your hands.
But over the years, there've been a lot of variations that have come out since then.
That's what we want to talk about this morning.
The first consideration is which size you want.
The original Moonwatch is a 42-millimeter and it's handwound mechanical, meaning that
you're going to wind it every morning.
It's not automatic and it does not have the date.
If you insist on an automatic movement and the date, then you're not going to get the
42-millimeter Speedmaster.
That means you're either going to go with a 39-millimeter reduced, a little bit smaller
case diameter, smaller bracelet, or you're going to go with the more modern 40-millimeter
Speedmaster racing, or the 44 and a quarter millimeter Speedmaster coaxial.
I'll show you some variations on those as we go through.
But let's just say you decided that you're a purist, you want the 42-millimeter, you
want the original Moonwatch, there's something certainly about the idea that you can still
buy the watch, essentially unchanged more or less from the original watch that went
to the moon.
This is the one that you saw in that movie about Apollo 13, where the Speedmaster was
what was used to time that 14-second burn that saved the astronauts lives.
This is the watch.
When we look at these on the 42-millimeter Speedmaster professional, that's the only
one that's actually the Moonwatch.
It does say on the back of the one that has the original plastic Hesalite crystal, and
on the back, it says flight-qualified by NASA for all manned space missions.
This is the one, when we talk about this crystal, it is a heavy duty plexiglass.
Omega calls it Hesalite, and it is very durable.
What's interesting about it is that it is just soft enough that it can retain some scuffs.
It can get scratched, but it's very easy, some people say charming to be able to get
rid of those scratches.
There's a little tube of a magic potion called Polywatch.
It's about $7 on Amazon and you just rub that into your crystal with a microfiber cloth,
and those scratches just go away.
But then you're probably asking why would I even want, a Hesalite crystal if it scratches?
Well, the reason is when you look at the modern Sapphire crystal, which Omega had done in
some special editions before 2003, but in 2003, they finally caved to the wishes of
the Speedmaster fans and came out with a production watch with a Sapphire crystal on the front.
Now the Sapphire crystal is much harder than the Hesalite.
It is much more resistant to scratches and scuffs.
It can chip, it can shatter, but it is a much more modern, durable material for the watch.
The problem with it is that at the edge where it attaches to the watch, it's very thick.
When you look at the two watches side by side, now this Sapphire one has a Brown dial, don't
let that throw you.
When we hold it side by side with the Hesalite crystal version, what you'll see is that because
the Sapphire crystal is so thick at the edges, it causes this sort of milky halo around the
dial of the watch.
It's a little bit white looking, and some people feel that that does interfere with
the aesthetics of the watch.
You get the full view all the way to the edge with the Hesalite crystal.
Though the Hesalite, it's an optical quality plastic, it's a very high quality - it's used
in plastic eyeglasses and even contact lenses, all sorts of things that are made out of that
material.
If you want to be a purist, if you want the one that's actually flight-qualified, you
need Hesalite crystal.
If you want the modern durability, and you don't mind the halo around the edge, then
the Sapphire crystal is a good way to go.
The Sapphire crystal model also incidentally has the Sapphire crystal on the back as well,
so that you can see that glorious Omega handwound mechanical column wheel chronograph movement
and a few different finishes.
But that's the main thing.
This watch became known as the Sapphire sandwich, because it has the Sapphire crystals on the
front and back.
There is, for those who want to be able to see the movement, yet also have Hesalite crystal,
there's one that is sometimes termed the Hesalite sandwich that has Hesalite on the front and
Sapphire on the back.
But the main Hesalite one is going to have the closed back.
This is the one, if you want the Moonwatch, this is the one, Hesalite crystal on the front,
closed case back on the back.
There's also a consideration when you're looking at the 42-millimeter Moonwatch about the bracelets.
This is the older style, this is the classic original bracelet.
It has the Omega logo on the clasp, and it does taper down to a smaller clasp, and it's
all satin finish.
When you look at the more modern versions of the Moonwatch, you'll see this bracelet,
which was essentially stolen off of the Seamaster line.
It has the two buttons on the clasp, but much wider clasp.
It doesn't taper down as small, it has the two lines of high polish in the bracelet.
It's a more modern, robust, heavy duty kind of bracelet.
It makes the whole watch feel bigger when you have it on when the bracelet is wider,
but if you want to stick with the original, it's this bracelet.
Let's just say though, that you have decided that you don't want the 42-millimeter.
Either you don't want to wind it every day, or you want the date.
That means you're going to go with either the reduced came out first way back in 1988,
Omega decided that they would come out - the 42-millimeter was considered a huge watch
in 1988.
You think about the Rolex sport models are 40-millimeter.
This one was a hair bigger at 42.
It made the whole watch feel rather large.
They came out with a smaller one at 39-millimeter as the Speedmaster reduced.
In the reduced, you're going to get the automatic movement you're going to get at the beginning,
a Hesalite crystal, which would be this one.
Hesalite crystal, no date, and again, a bracelet that has the older clasp.
This was the go-to for people who wanted a Moonwatch, but they wanted an automatic movement
for years and years.
In 2006, they came up with a little bit of a revamp of the line.
They changed the bracelet again, the one with the buttons here for the clasp, the wider
bracelet, it got a Sapphire crystal, and they cleaned up the dial a little bit.
You can see the older version - it has the numbers on the ends of the batons.
It goes through five, 10, 15, 20, and then they lost that on the 2006 model.
You can see the difference between the two - cleaner dial, more modern bracelet, and
it added the date.
They unfortunately discontinued this watch in 2009 though.
By 2009, the 39-millimeter was a little on the slight side.
At that point they revamped the Omega Speedmaster racing line, it became 40-millimeter with
the date.
For a lot of people, that one millimeter of difference, because it's not just the one
millimeter of the case, it's also the size of the bracelet.
It's the overall scale of the watch.
It made more sense as a modern watch to go with the 40-millimeter.
When they did that, they came out with all sorts of dials.
You can get yellows, reds, blues, Panda, all sorts of different design configurations on
the 40-millimeter Speedmaster racing.
That might be the way to go for you.
Then this is sort of the flagship model for someone who says they want a Moonwatch, but
they want automatic, you might consider this one.
This one features the caliber 9300, it's an inhouse, Omega movement.
Whereas the original Moonwatch is based on a Lemania movement.
The reduced, it's got an ETA base that's driving a chronograph module that is attached to it.
But this is an in-house coaxial, it's a chronometer and it's accurate to within minus four to
plus six seconds a day where the others are not certified that way.
It's a twin barrel.
It has two full main springs that are in sequence.
It has a much longer power reserve.
It'll run more reliably at different amounts of wind.
It is automatic.
It has the date, it's the coaxial escapement.
This really is the flagship movement for Omega.
This is their entry into becoming more of a manufacturer, where they will have a more
and more in house movements, I'm sure as time goes by.
At 44 and a quarter millimeter, it's a pretty big watch.
More importantly from lug to lug, it's a pretty big watch.
You'd think I'm a guy that likes big watches, I've worn a lot of 44-millimeter Panerais,
and that one worked out great for me.
But what you don't realize until you put this watch on is that they used the same kind of
dome Sapphire crystal for the front and the back.
When you look at it from the side, you can see this truly is the Sapphire sandwich.
The back crystal is almost taller than the front one.
It really sits up high on the wrist if you've got an average to smaller size wrist.
They did change the configuration of the chronograph on the dial as well.
They kind of cleaned it up.
It's only got to two registers instead of three.
It has the date at the bottom.
For a lot of people on paper, this is the watch that is kind of the ultimate expression
of what they started with in 1957 with the Speedmaster.
My only concern is that the back crystal is so high that you might think it sets a little
too high.
If that's the case for you, the Speedmaster racing that's in 44 and a quarter doesn't
have as high a dome crystal on the back, it sits a little lower.
That might be the way to go, but it would be all the different creative dials rather
than the black one.
I hope that makes sense.
A 42-millimeter hand wound, 39-millimeter reduced a couple of different generations,
the current 40-millimeter racing, or the 44 and a quarter millimeter either in the coaxial
or the racing edition should make the decision a little bit easier for you.
Which one camp do you fall into, a straight traditionalist, or someone who wants to see
some of the modern flares, modern benefits on the watch.
If you have any questions, give us a call here at SwissWatchExpo.
We try to keep all of these in stock all the time, give us a call and we'll help you walk
through it.
We'll look at specific stock numbers with you and talk about the pros and cons and which
one might be the best one for you based on your personal style, your wrist size, what
you're looking for in a watch.
We'll be happy to help you wade through the jungle of the Speedmasters.