On new strap and deployant


My AD threw in a new wooden box!

 

I can't get enough of my GSOTM. I will own a Dark Side and Black Black before too long. Pictures just don't do the Dark Side justice in my opinion.

Wear it in good health. Very nice!!

 

That's not the regular DSOTM strap is it? I'd like something like that for my SM 300 but I'm not buying the big money ceramic buckle.

 

Very nice.

Just wanted to put this out there, try to be a bit more careful with your ceramic watches, especially if they are uninsured. I highly recommend getting them insured.

Someone on another forum said they dropped their GSOTM from a low height and one of the lugs chipped. Boutique said it would 7K for a new case.

 

I've seen some people get pretty heated when it comes to ceramic cases. If you're anything like me it would be devastating to have a case break and then be forced to pony up $7k for a new one. The lady at the Omega boutique told me the cases were nearly indestructible! I told her I've seen a picture with the lug broken off and she told me Omega had a video of the watch, or maybe just the case, falling onto a ceramic tile and breaking the tile. Unless you have big bucks I'd get insurance.

 

That's the cordura/leather strap with semi-curved ends that comes with the DSOTM "Black Black." All of the new SOTM-series deploy straps fit the SM 300 MC, as I sourced an SM300 MC for a friend and got him a steel deploy clasp to work with the "Black Black" cordura/leather and "Sedna Black" aligator/leather straps.

So this pic has been floating around for a while, and so far it's the ONLY empirical evidence anywhere that a SOTM ceramic case has ever failed catastrophically. While the cost of the case replacement was quoted as $9k in 2013 or 2014 when the watch was just released I can't imagine it still being that much with the economics of scale at play. There's nary another post on the interwebs about a broken SOTM case, and if anything people have been nothing but complimentary at it's durability and scratch-resistance.
That being said, I still think Steel or Titanium is the way to go for watch cases. Lower cost, higher durability, still looks great. Yes, it can pick up scratches but they can be buffed out if done with a careful hand.

 

Hope this is alright. Taken from a topic on another watch forum.

Nowhere near as bad as the picture above, but it's still major damage.

I really like ceramic as a case material, especially for scratch resistance, but it can't stand up to impacts like steel can.

 

Thank you!

 

everytime, brother.

 

Outstanding!!!

Wear it in good health!

 

I guess it depends on what you mean by catastrophically:

https://omegaforums.net/threads/omega-speedmaster-gsotm-chipped-lug.36135/#post-410051

I also have information from Omega in Canada that they have seen one case with a snapped off lug - despite the conspiracy theories posited by some others, I doubt Omega would lie to me about the watch getting broken...

No one has ever said these would all explode if you look at them the wrong way, but it's pretty clear that given the right circumstances, they can and do suffer damage.

Oh, and if you think prices are going down for parts - well that's just nonsense. In all the years I have been buying parts from Omega, none have ever gone down, including this case. I expect prices for parts will increase again soon, just like they do every year...

Cheers, Al

 

So that post was after and in response to my "I've only ever seen one reported incident" statement, and yes it's a ding to the case so I guess there's now two online documented incidents . I remember reading one of your posts saying that you'd heard directly from Omega that they had one reported incident, but I wasn't sure if it was the same incident as the original "broken off lug" pic so the count might be up to three officially.

And while it's not as unstable as room temp nitroglycerin ceramic by nature is more brittle than steel and catostrophic failures are more likely from seemingly innocent shocks - it's simply not as forgiving. The SOTM cases can probably take a good amount of abuse, but the constant fear that a fall could cause some permanent damage just because it hit a microscopic weak spot is real. As a puck player this is a similar situation to composite vs wood sticks, and how the new-age materials provide extraordinary performance gains but failure rates and circumstances are random and more likely.

As for "Omega parts never getting cheaper" it was first reported that the case cost $9k to replace, but recently the cost has been stated as $7k. Yes, it's still obscenely expensive but that still a pretty large downtick. Maybe the currency in the first reported incident was in CAN $.....

 

Yes it was Canadian dollars. Prices have not gone down, and will only go up based on past experience.

 

Looks great!

 

Mine says welcome to the dsotm

 

My DSOTM say Hi~~... But I changed the cordura to rubber strap

 

Which rubber strap is that?

 

It is the OEM Solar Impulse rubber strap with the ceramic deployant.