Here is a 105.003-64 You Don't see often. Wally Schirra's Speedmaster auction...

Someone got an excellent deal.

😉 I will share more detailed photos and information on this incredible piece of Omega history once it arrives. I’ll be visiting Omega’s HQ in November so hopefully I can try and pry some information out of them about these bezels that they’ve never officially acknowledged.

👍 New to OF but not to Omega as an enthusiast (or watches in general) so I’ll definitely share more info. I know a lot of times these pieces get snapped up and you never see or hear about them again OR they get snapped up by a dealer and show up in another auction down the road… like some of the gold Apollo astronaut watches have recently. I’m not a dealer.

Well, perhaps Wally Schirra mentioned " it was the same type of wrist watch he wore on Gemini VIa "
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What do the NASA photos show ?
Walter Schirra wore his personal CK2998-4 from at least April 1962 to September 1966 !
What happened in October 1966 ?
Well, on October 22, 1966 during a ceremony at the Naval Academy - Anapolis Maryland, three NASA astronauts received a Rolex GMT-master 1675 Pepsi pilot watch:
Anapolis graduates Walter "Wally" Schirra, Thomas "Tom" Stafford and James "Jim" Lovell
From then on we see both Schirra (1967 Apollo 1 investigation) and Lovell (Apollo NASA training) often wearing their Rolex GMT-master 1675 Pepsi pilot watch.
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We all know Schirra wore his CK2998-4 during water egress training and even in his pool at home!
The last time we saw Schirra's personal CK2998 during NASA training was during Gemini III where he and Stafford acted as backup crew. Bezelless by February 1965... (NASA photo 65C-1347)
Summer 1965 onwards, we see a bezelless straight lugs Speedmaster with clear white hands, more than probably a NASA-issued 105.003, visible in some of the September 1965 Gemini VI weight & balance photographs. (NASA photo S65-4319).
After the October 25, 1965 ATV failure, the mission became Gemini VIa ... and we keep seeing Schirra wearing a bezelless straight lugs Speedmaster. Although we know NASA reserved specific Speedies for actual spaceflight missions, it's unclear if this was the NASA-issued 105.003-64 n° 19 he finally wore during the mission.
During the October 20, 1965 official crew photo session, he wore the bezelless straight lugs Speedmaster with clear white hands (there're at least a dozen different photos of this session).
On the actual launch day, December 15, 1965 Stafford clearly wore two Speedmaster 105.003 (one bezelless) with Schirra wearing a 105.003 at his left forearm... the longer I look at these photos the harder it becomes to tell if it was bezelless...
There's no photographic proof of Schirra wearing a second wrist watch underneath the space suit, both pre-launch suit up and post splash-down photos show clear wrists...
A very last possibility might be the fact that Schirra took it onboard as an extra item, after all he smuggled a little mouth harmonica and a string of jingle bells onboard the spacecraft.
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Gemini VII launched first (lasted about 14 days), followed by Gemini VIa to rendez-vous with VIa lasting about 26 hours...
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While I will be visiting Omega's HQ... Omega was not a bidder. My visit is coincidental and was planned before I even knew this watch was consigned in this auction.

I'll be seeing what I can get on the serial number, etc. Already in the process of doing so. And if not... I'll wear it on my wrist when I visit Biel/Bienne 😂.

I did not already have a vintage "Ed White" in my collection as I was waiting until I found something I thought was special. And this was it.

It's the only one that I am aware of that has astronaut related provenance.

They weren't blue to begin with in the same way that tropical dials weren't tropical when they left the factory. Although how they got that way doesn't appear to be the same way tropical dials end up that way (which is from UV and environmental conditions).

These watches left the factory with black bezels. It was then most likely an anodizing paint defect that caused the black bezels to turn blue and it only impacted a very limited number of bezels. Known examples tend to be clustered around specific serial number ranges that date to production batches in mid-late 1964.

When they turned blue they did so uniformly. It wasn't the black fading like you might see in a ghost bezel but a chemical reaction that caused a more fundamental color transformation from black to blue.

As for how this lone example came to be... most likely pure happenstance.

Well, aren't those called Alpha Baton hands ? ( clearly straight lugs bezelless Speedmaster with applied logo = CK2998-4 on lightweight JB Champion bracelet)
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If 1960s NASA photos learn us one thing wrist-watch-wise, it's the fact the astronauts loved their watches with Walter Schirra, James Lovell and Charles Conrad in my top 3.
Photos show Schirra wearing at least a dozen different watches, Accutron, Accutron Astronaut, Omega Speedmaster CK2998-4, Speedmaster 105.003, Speedmaster 105.012-65, Rolex GMT-master 1675, Rolex Daytona 6240, Gold Speedmaster BA145.022-69 etc... so no wonder he had another Speedmaster...
Interesting 1964 LIFE magazine photos at his home, swimming with the bezelless CK2998-4
(Photos: LIFE / NASA / MoonwatchUniverse )
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@UltraSpeedy
IMHO the best photo-documented case of a watch turning "Tropical" was the Movado Datachron HS360 automatic chronograph worn by NASA astronaut Gerald Carr as NASA Skylab SL-4 photos clearly show a blue dial watch, which turned completely "Tropical" 4 decades later !
(Photos: NASA/Hodinkee)
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Speedmaster aficionados know about the blue DNN bezel used on the commemorative 2005 Gemini IV Speedmaster but they also know that some of the 1960s Speedmaster 105.003-64 versions got a patinated blue DON bezel over time... 🧐