Apollo XI Straight Writing: Love it or Hate it?

This watch just arrived today from Japan. First off, thank you @krogerfoot for making the buy and for arranging the whole affair, including dealing with customs and shipping. I'm very grateful.

It's said there're only 300 of these references and that all were sold in Japan. Perhaps, but it's strange that they seem to be for sale regularly. Regardless of how many, they are very interesting and have their own allure.

You can't see the caseback so is that enough of a reason to buy a watch? Speedmasters have an emotional element anyway, so part of the attraction is that nebulous emotional element. I may not be able to see the engraving, but I know it's there.

Besides the low production numbers, part of the attraction of the straight writing engravings is the joyful celebration they project. The first moon landing had just taken place and Omega was caught up in the celebration and excitement. Omega didn't know what to do but they had to do something because they were bursting with pride. "THE FIRST WATCH WORN ON THE MOON" was the result. Only later did the lawyers suggest that they might want to ask NASA if they were okay with identifying the Speedmaster as the Moon watch. So Omega holds back release, gets NASA's permission, and then releases the watch. They must have had committee meetings afterwards to discuss what they should put on the watches going forward, because the inscription changed after these straight writing casebacks. So to me, these references are like a frozen snapshot of youthful joy.

That brings us to this example. Do you think this watch is:

A) Attractive, it's got that aged and worn look that attracks me to vintage.

B) Meh. Don't love it, don't hate. It's a pass for me.

C) Ugly, a face only a mother could love.

It's difficult for me to get lifelike photos. For contrast, I placed it next to my 145.022-68 that has a beautiful, dark dial with manilla lume. In the auction listing, the dial was washed out, the lume was dirty with a hint of green and the hands' lume was black. But in person, the dial, hands and lume have a tobacco color that pops in the sunlight. The dial is difficult to describe. It's not gray or brown, but it's not black either. The lume on the hands looks dark out of the light but has a deep chocolate color in the light. And the bezel has a nice fading around the outer edge without any scratches that would make it seem forced. The case is okay, no gouges or nicks, but it's polished. I would have loved to have seen it before a watchmaker tried to pretty it up, but that's how it is.

So here are the pics:


Postscript:
It is attached to an 1175 bracelet but these probably all came with 1116 bracelets.

It does have the early mark 4 case, according to ndgal's chart and blog published on chronoholic.com




Well, thanks for indulging me.

I like it. 👍

Like Ash said, if you only had one speedy, the dash 68 is a great choice. 861 vs 321, plus it has the older look dial with AML.

But if you had to have two, why not a SW? 😁

To me, this is between an A and a B. Leaning to A as it is quite typical for Straight Writings. Mine has a somewhat similar vintage feel. Like!

As you can imagine, I looked at a lot of pictures of these SW. While there were some beautiful examples of what we typically think of with the golden lume, there were a lot with darkened lume. Perhaps it was the production method and period, perhaps it was the humid environment. It could have been my own selection bias, but, like you, I saw a lot of similar patina.

You can read more about this 145.022-68 in this thread:

https://omegaforums.net/threads/upd...t-for-determining-value-of-145-022-68.142524/

After work, of course. 😀