Hello everybody, I found trhis site when researching whether my 21st birthday present watch was rare, I hadn't thought it would be but it seems early Speedmaster Professional "racing" models are. I love watches. This birthday watch was the first quality watch I owned, in 1971. I have quite a few now, being an engineer I tend to be much more interested (and impressed) by the movement than the styling, but that leads to very expensive since any realistically priced watch tends to have a standard(ish) movement. I was delighted to see Omega adopt the co-axial movement which separates them from the "crowd" fo me. cheers, Frank
Welcome to OF Frank, looking forward to seeing the pictures of the watches. Are you still working in F1 or has that time passed? Hope you enjoy the forum, it can be a bit strange at times and threads do have a habit of heading off topic almost as quickly as an F1 car goes round corners.
You will have seen huge changes in the sport over that time, what was the biggest from an engineers point of view? I have been a massive F1 fan since 1979 and couldn't believe my luck when I got a job working for a Company that had the warehouse next-door to the Williams team in Didcot, great times those early 80's. I still support Williams today I know that they are working hard to turn things around and get back up the grid after a couple of disappointing seasons.
The huge increase in the money being made available. Our season in 1977 cost £220,000 and there were 18 of us in the whole company, now teams spend 3 orders of magnitude more and have 700-1000 employees. Safety is much improved by it but not the racing.
It cost around £100 then, the equivalent (based on engineers starting salary change over the period) to about £2000 today.
Nice! I grew up watching Damon in the 90s and that left a mark on me. I've been supporting Williams ever since. Hope they get it turned around quickly, as mentioned above. Big thanks to you (and obviously many others) for making this happen! And great watch as well, something to be proud of with all the history behind it!
Hi Frank Welcome to OF - I’m a fellow Oxfordshire resident, South Oxfordshire, so no doubt fairly close by. Many of us will going giddy over your 21st Birthday present. A genuinely rare and beautiful piece. Best Nathan