My first speedy... too slow, or just fine?

Hey all. New member here! I recently acquired my childhood dream watch, a Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch (feel excited just typing that sentence!!) As my first >1k watch purchase I have been working through the due-diligence items. The specific watch I got was made circa ~2000, ref 3570.50 hesalite, calibre 1861.

From a private seller, I paid a fairly good price compared to most I have seen come and go in recent months. Of course, from a private seller, there were some light... quirks to the deal. The watch was "serviced" by a 3rd party watchmaker (presumably with an Omega parts account) in November before the previous owner picked it up. I took it by my local AD (jeweler, not watchmaker) and she did not see anything standing out as obviously subpar about the watch as I received it, but I am skeptical that it was really serviced in any meaningful way other than a polishing and quick health check. I am not having any issue with it at this time other than that it seems to be running 12-15 (usually almost 12 exactly) seconds slow each day, checking against the time.gov atomic clock every 24h and then winding to full. It is consistently losing that amount after 7 days of keeping an eye on it.

I don't have any issue with this, in a practical sense. Seconds accuracy is not that important to me and I don't mind adjusting the time every couple of weeks to stay correct. I am more trying to determine whether or not this is cause for concern now or in the future as to the health of the watch itself. I understand that it's a 25 year old piece with an unknown service history, but I was hoping to get a few years before selling a kidney to get the in-house service treatment. I just want to make sure I'm not getting a dud, before more than a couple weeks have passed since the deal.

Any advice/experience appreciated! Otherwise, I am loving the Speedmaster experience and have a feeling that this will not be my last...

picture(s) would be nice

Sure!

This is probably my next step. Thanks all for chiming in!! Super excited still to own one of these legendary pieces and start contributing to this forum 😀

I am really liking the Spiral Winder display case as well. Makes the watch wear a bit smaller than the hippocampus.

Hummm.. unoriginal caseback, unoriginal bracelet, I doubt a service was done to it.

One of my Speedmasters was running a bit off, so I adjusted it myself. I know Archer (and probably others) are being revived right now after suffering the shock of knowing that some moronic ham-fisted bozo like myself actually tried to do this, but I was able to do it without any damage to the watch, and I did get it within specs. I did, however, strain my arm from patting myself on the back so much. LOL 😜

However, full disclosure, I tried to do the same thing with some cheap Chinese POS watch and ended up boogering the movement and had to sell it on eBay for parts. So, I'm not going to try it again.

That said, if your jeweler is willing to do if for you, it should not be a very expensive proposition. Or, if you wanted to, you could just pay him/her to do a service and remove all doubt.

Enjoy the new watch!

The original caseback was included in the sale, but yeah, your point is a fair one. I am not a bracelet guy to begin with but I really do like the Forstner and the display case - I feel like they are two things that I would've bought myself.

There is only one local watchmaker that seems to be a good candidate in central VA where I'm located (would love to be proven wrong on this), but I reached out to him about having it examined/regulated/pressure tested.

I think that ultimately I will probably try to track down another similar reference with box and papers and that'll be the keeper, but I'm really enjoying this one as a taster so far.

Test if it's magnetized and if it is, buy a cheap demagnetizer. You can learn how to easily test it in Google or YouTube.