Apollo Soyuz 1975

mstanga

- limited edition of 500 (the serial number of each one movement must exactly fit into a determined range 39.180.xxx - 39.181.xxx)
(it is mandatory to obtain a specific extract of archives from Omega)

dsio

Were they all produced by Lemania or only some? Also at what point during the 2998 production run did that change?

For the reference CK 2915 the caliber 321 was used. However the chronographs were produced at Lémania at that time.

Unfortunately, the archives of the company Lémania are untraceable and for this reason we can not communicate more information as we can only confirm what we ourselves have written in our archive.

BASE1000

Well, it seems like this information is not completely correct. Marco Richon writes in his book 'a journey through time', that beside the 500 watches from Bienne there was a special edition issued by the Italian market itself, which carries on the outside of the caseback the 'i' for Italy and the omega sign in a circle as well as the engraved number in between.

Data gathered by various collectors in Italy suggests that Omega Bienne, in fact, produced only about 350 pieces of this model by his own, whereas another 150 were produced under license by Fratelli De Marchi, the Omega licensee in Italy, Torino at this time. Because no two of these watches have ever been found that share the same limited edition number.

Collectors of the very early Speedmasters know about this kind of license-partner-watches, because nowadays it makes no sense for example to order an extract of the archives for a 2915 or an early 2998, as Omega will not provide any further information than the fact, that the watch (not specified!) was produced under license of Lemania at l'Orient and delivered to this or that country under this or that date.

The Fratelli De Marchi Apollo Soyuz are similar kind of license partner watches. The museum can not recognize from the Omega factory records which of the outgoing Speedmaster became one of the limited Apollo Soyuz series in Italy. The records do also not contain any note about the engraved consecutive numbering on the caseback. It seems only clear that the factory delivered the relevant movements in summer 1975 to De Marchi and that they carried numbers around 32.xxx.xxx whereas the Biel assembled models carry 39.xxx.xxx movements and were delivered to the agents not before 1976. To my knowledge this watches went to Italy as well. I have never heard or seen anything about a different destiny than Italy.

After all the 'Fratelli De Marchi' matter is one of the very interesting but still not completely unveiled question around the mysteries of this famous and very first LE Speedmaster. However there is no doubt in what mstanga says, that this watch shows up extremely rare, maybe one example every 3 years. This makes it more than likely that no more than 500 items in total were issued to the market. Let me compare the Soyuz with the ST 345.0809 moonphase from 1985 with also no more than 1300 unites produced. Although this watch is similar collectible and iconic, it can be sourced any time if you are ready for an international transaction or/ and to pay a serious amount, whereas the 500 Soyuz 's disappeared practically from the market.

The problem, as I see it, is that a part of the collector’s community, of which I am one, often applies current practice to historic products. In the case of your watch it clearly is not a “fake” and at the same time is not part of the limited series made in Bienne. If one were to accept that our agent made a parallel limited series and/or was the instigator of the series converting watches and later ordering them directly from the factory, this is hypothesis however on I feel is the likely answer to the riddle, one would see that the watch in your position has an additional historic value over the standard Speedmaster Professional. If we take as fact the all known Apollo Soyuz watches delivered by OMEGA S.A were delivered in late 1975-1976 it is easy to see that your watch predates these pieces, by accepting this possibility and not looking for someone to blame and or a guilty party, one could possibly “re-write” the history of this most important watch, the first “Patch” watch and show that it was the unique Italian take on esthetics and love of watches which was the genesis of this type of limited edition. This has happened with other pieces where local production or demand became the basis for standard production watches which went on to become icons.

Other than the above suggestion I cannot be of more help, it is simply a fact that we will never be able to say that your watch [remark: the one of the italian collector] is an OMEGA S.A Apollo Soyuz, however within certain confines which are in place such as the extract system we can help you and other collectors to come to informed decisions as to the authenticity of a “De Marchi” Soyuz.

speedy4ever

Hi,
There will be 1-2 more information in our book, nothing revolution, just volume numbers and dates. But we indeed were not able to find invoices for 500 pieces, despite tracking invoices from 1975 to 1977. We also believe in the De Marchi hypothesis.
Sorry for not being able to tell more at thr moment.

niceboy182

my love 😀

Privateday7

Welcome bro. Rare LE Speedy Pro............very heandsome.👍

BASE1000

I want to share with you some pics of an Apollo Soyuz from 1975.







........

S sarp.vahabi

Movement serials and detailed photos are going to be uploaded to this thread soon.