Accessories

Good Size Watch
I've never seen this watch up close before so all the descriptions about how big and heavy the watch was really had me concerned. After receiving this I find it to be a perfectly sized men's watch. My day to day watch was a Suunto Vector. The Omega has the same size face but the case of the watch is thinner and smaller than the Vector so it looks just right to me. The weight is solid and I got used to it quickly. The links weren't too difficult to adjust but you may want to take this to a watchsmith or purchase a pin extract tool to go with this (I popped the pins out with a thumbtack and then used a leatherman to pull it the rest of the way out - be careful not to scratch the band). All in all a solid purchase with no regrets.

30 Year Review
After much research, I purchased an Omega Speedmaster in 1968 as an 18th birthday present to myself. There were not many chronographs available at that time (Rolex, Breitling, Omega and probably others I no longer remember). To my surprise, that summer (or next), Omega began agressive advertising that it's watch was the official timepiece of the Apollo Astronauts. It reaffirmed my choice. Thirty years later, it is still the best watch I own (including my Submariner). My only complaint is that I have gone through three or four bracelets/straps. Ironically, a new metal bracelet costs more than the original cost of my Speedmaster ($185). Interestingly, no Rolex owner has ever commented on my Submariner, but fellow Speedmaster owners always start up a conversation with each other. I cannot comment on the new Speedmasters, but mine has been dropped, thrown, drowned, frozen, heated, shaken and abused for 30 years and still runs great. I recommend factory cleaning, vacuum sealing and a new crystal every 10 years or so, just to be safe.

My last watch
When I graduated from college in 1966, my parents gave me a fine very slim gold Swiss watch. It didn't last a month in the Amazon. The stainless automatic Seiko I bought at the PX in Vietnam was stolen out of my car. Then I bought my last watch, the Omega Speedmaster Professional.

I was half way through law school when I bought it at Al's Pawn Shop in Nashville in 1974 for about $125, the most I could afford. A year later my wife gave me a tooled silver bracelet watch band for my birthday. It's the only watch I have worn since.

It has always been amazingly accurate. When it quits because I forgot to wind it, that means I have been too busy and I try to slow down. As a litigator, I use the stop watch function frequently to time my work. When it finally wore out after some 25 years, I sent it to an expert near Seattle I located online and he put it back into like new shape...for five times what I had paid for it.

In 1997 I saw the same watch in a store window in Geneva. I made a note of the price in Swiss francs and later calculated it cost around $3500 in US dollars. That's when I realized my treasured watch had probably been stolen and fenced at Al's Pawn Shop all those years before. Until then I had thought I was merely the beneficiary of a man down on his luck who needed money to get home.

To see the exact same watch on the wrist of the space suit at the Huntsville Space Museum and playing a critical role in the movie, Apollo 13, gives me a funny sense of pride at my uncanny good luck to have a watch I will never replace at such a low price. On a subconscious level I hope the satisfaction the watch has given me for these past 30+ years is somehow sensed by the owner from whom it was stolen and he is pleased. Especially since he had it adequately insured.

Since 1983...
Bought in 1983 for about 800 bucks. It's a little heavy, but it is so beautiful. I wear it 5 - 10 times / month. One new crystal needed in 1998. No work on the mechanical movement, ever.

Worn by Michael Schumacher and Michael Crichton, to name a few.

An old Swiss friend told me (back in 1983) that you look at your watch 30 - 100 times a day--why not have a beauty (he had a Patek Phillipe).

Consider it a 20 year investment.

A real classic
This watch is a true classic. I've owned mine for over 30 years, I've worn it almost everyday and it still works like the day I got it. Yes, it's been in for repair a few times (after awhile the buttons stick), but this watch will outlast me.

It keeps perfect time, or as close as a mechanical watch can get, it's extremely easy to read and the chronograph funtions work better than any other chronograph I own. I charge by the hour, and this watch has been very handy for me, especially given the fact that it will time things up to 12 hours, a movement that's very hard to find or very expensive.

It's only downfall is the fact that you have to wind it. Forget to do this and you'll be late for everything, but you soon get used to it.

Omega's "Moon Watch" looks as good in the boardroom as it does on the tennis court, and it's a hell of a deal for a great timepiece.