Holy Grail reissue: conceivable project or pipe dream?

Have you ever actually seen one?

Let me tell you a little story. Back in 2004, I contacted Chuck Maddox by e-mail. Not because he was an authority on Speedmaster chronographs, because at the time I was still immune to their charm, but because he shared my keen interest in the Lemania 5100 movement. It's through him that I first heard about "the Grail" as he called it with a touch of irony. He had posted several pictures of his example on his web pages, but I still didn't really felt anything special. As a Lemania 5100 collector, it was just another line to possibly tick someday, but given the price of Omega watches compared to many other brands, I didn't feel much of a hurry. But I slowly was intrigued by the challenge of hunting one down. In other words, it's actually the difficulty of the task that intrigued me the most. So I started looking, with Chuck's encouragements. It took me a couple of years to find what was to become my example, and after a couple of scares the watch finally arrived. And then everything changed!

This watch that I had spent months trying to find, while not necessarily sold on the look of it compared to some of the chronographs already in my collection, completely mesmerized me. It was by far the best Lemania 5100 dial I had ever seen, and the presence of this watch on the wrist was just indescribable. As far as I was concerned, there was no hype, and Chuck had not exaggerated his description. Funnily enough, it's actually the Holy Grail that opened me up to the stylistic language of the Moonwatch and not the other way around. And while I am actively saving in the hope of reacquiring my birth year 145.022-69 that adverse circumstances forced me to sell in 2013, part of my brain remains hopeful that a sudden windfall might allow me one day to do the same thing with my Holy Grail, the last watch I sold, which turned me into a sobbing wreck when I sent it to his new owner.

To all of you who think that the Holy Grail is just hype and no substance, I can only encourage you to strap one on if you ever have a chance to do so. I can think of a few doubters who got their perceptions reset following such a trial.

This watch is just not for you, and that's perfectly fine. If we all had the same tastes, life would be boring.

Yes, and I'm guilty of oversimplification. I should have written that a great deal of the engineering had already been done. Mea culpa.

If they really want to do a reedition, I guess they will be better off reengineering the dial part of a 9900 caliber than adding a coaxial escapement to a 5100 and beautifying it.

But I also doubt they'll find the customers for a simple reedition.
1/ They won't be able to sell it for cheap because of the R&D
2/ It cannot be sold as the original moonwatch caliber like the 321, meaning (wealthy) watch "enthusiasts" cannot brag about it.

For me, the only chance it could happen is that if Omega decides to go back to this layout for their next generation of chronograph, so all Speedmaster Racing and Seamaster chronographs (I think they stopped producing the Constellation and De Ville chronographs)

You're probably correct, unfortunately. Omega and Lemania had a relationship that no longer exists, gone when the latter was rebranded as "Manufacture Bréguet", so now the zeitgeist is to offer in-house movements. Aesthetics aside, the calibre 9900 ticks that particular box, while the Lemania based calibre 1045 does not.



That's an intriguing prospect, though I'm not sure there's any desire, either from Omega or its customers, to go in this direction. The possibility to do other reissues like the Mark III Speedmaster or the old 176.004 "Big Blue" Seamaster 120 chronograph may not be enough of an incentive to revisit the past, however iconic it might be to some collectors. After all, the Mark III is a bit of a bargain these days as Speedmaster chronographs go.

Then again, I don't think many people expected the company to reissue the Bullhead design that it originally shared with Lemania...

um...ok 😁

Maybe it's a case of misunderstanding a meaning of a word in a language that is not my own, but I was under the impression that the word hype was defined as "extravagant or intensive publicity or promotion".

My personal compulsion to sing this chronograph's praise comes from a genuine case of love at first sight (of first wear more accurately). So I'm being perfectly honest in stating that words fail me, even if my mother's tongue, to describe how impressed and smitten I was. If that covers your definition of hype, so be it.

Sue me. 😝

For many people, "hype" means "a lot of bluster to cover inadequacies".

That would tend to be close to my own understanding of the word as commonly used. And given that I don't see any obvious inadequacy in the chronograph I'd love to see resurrected, I'm not sure the word is the most fitting.

Let's put it this way: I had a date with Miss World, and I never recovered. The lot of you may think that she is now old, past it and not that attractive with her plastic implants, but to me she remains the one who populates my dreams. The definition of beauty might have moved on with newer generations, but I'm too stuck in my ways to evolve the same way.

That's a point of detail, but one that bugs me to no end. Chuck Maddox never referred to this watch as "Holy Grail". He called it simply "the grail" just as a mean to describe his personal difficulty sourcing one and the frustrations he faced until finally reaching his goal. It turns out that, based on the information compiled by the authors of Moonwatch Only in a superb and free electronic book devoted to the HG, only one single example was originally sold in the US, so that may explain Chuck's trouble in tracking one down.

The big difference is that it was way easier to recreate than mimic a 5100: they only have to hide 1 counter on the existing 3313 calibers, print a dial, print a date disc, and draw the case. Nothing that requires real R&D.

Plus, despite being limited to 3x669 watches + 316 for the Rio Olympic Edition, you can still buy them brand new from Omega 8 years after they were produced. We do not have the sale figures per model for the 930 caliber, we just know that overall less than 10000 were produced. Maybe there are more 930 bullheads in the wild than the reeditions...

In the end, we did not expect Omega to revive the bullhead, but it was also a complete failure. Thankfully, it was a rather cheap one for Omega.

Indeed, the idea is certainly not proving popular.

Not that it was really meant to be, because as I made clear in my first post, I didn't really believe in the viability of such a project myself, and that despite the romantic desire that I have to see Omega take a little detour to revisit this side of its past.

I also never fully appreciated how that nickname, born out of a simpler one that was never meant to be largely used for public consumption, is actually generating mockery and at times resentment from some people. I always found it a bit pompous with the addition of the adjective "Holy", but since I like the watch a lot I never gave it more thought. But now it seems almost like an insult to anyone who's not receptive to the charm of this particular chronograph. With the benefit of hindsight, I think it would have been preferable for this watch's nickname to be "Chuck's Grail", because that's factually correct and would have made it more relatable, even to its detractors.

But maybe I should actually rejoice, because the more unimpressed people I find, the more likely that some people who bought this watch as an investment, as part of its ever raising valuation over the last decade, may one day decide to switch their attention and money to more universally desired models. There's a fair chance that this watch will remain out of my reach, but I can only hope that prices will go down a bit and I'll have a second shot at making it my watch. But first I have to work on getting my old 145.022-69 back, and that's going to tax my finances enough for a little while...

#definitelymygrail

For my first post here, I guess I am aiming to bump this thread with a related question: is it probable (or possible) that omega will release any speedmaster with a central minute totalizer? My personal holy grail would basically be the holy grail but with a coaxial movement over the lemania 5100. I know there are multiple coaxial speedmasters with GMT and split seconds, so why not modify it for a central minute? I may be wrong, but it seems the central minute totalizer is becoming slightly popular again and wanted to know what your thoughts were! It seems from many on here (regardless of opinion on if Omega would revive the watch) would definitely be interested in seeing omega bring out something like this.

TLDR; Would it really be too hard (from someone who knows) to tweak the Omega Caliber 3603 or 3612 where we’d have a central minute totalizer over the GMT or split seconds?