A beauty for sure! How sure are we of Aldrin's serial number? I have a one-owner 145.012-67 with a serial that starts 26541xxx. I thought it was now confirmed that Aldrin had a 105.012. Of course it's possible Aldrin had a 105.012 with a higher serial (even though the Moonwatch Only books says otherwise). Unfortunately I guess we'll never know unless the Omega museum surprise us.......

 

The plot thickens.......unexpectedly !!!

Received an 'Extract from the Archives'.........giving the date of Production, of my watch, as October 31st 1969 .......?

Accordiong to 'ILoveMySpeedmaster.com'...........Date of production is November 1968 ............. ?

Almost precisely a year apart...........?

What is going on ??.........Sought @eugeneandresson for advice....who suggested I make contact with the Archives

I rang the Extract Department directly.......and spoke to a very polite, young man....who was actually the person, who typed the extract

Upon, examining his database........He admitted that the extract was exactly a year out, in its dating....it should have been October 31st 1968

QED........'Finger Trouble' on the Keyboard

New extract being issued, with apologies......

I also imposed on the Researcher's time for the date of Michael Collins 145.012 Speedmaster....which is only 59 numbers away from mine

The watch Michael Collins wore, as Command Module Pilot, on the Apollo 11 flight was, according to the records, produced on October 30th 1968......The day before mine....means nothing really, but kind of fun to know !

Unfortunately the Archives give no more information about precisly, where the watch was delivered.....other than to, the Sole Distributor at that time 'Norman Morris'

Hey Ho !!

However back to the original Extract.......This kind of typing error, has occurred before, on the Forum.......which, represents.... only a small percentage, of Speedmaster owners....although by far, the most vocal !

https://omegaforums.net/threads/som...tion-date-bezel-chronology.68591/#post-861458

Thank you @eugeneandresson for the tip !

So....if it has happened twice........it has probably happened more frequently, than that ?

Now.....I dont want to stir up a 'blitz' on Omega's phone lines...........

But perhaps it is worth confirming your own Speedmaster Extract date ?.....against 'IloveMySpeedmaster.com' .......just to check ?

https://www.ilovemyspeedmaster.com/productiondateprediction/

Anyone else shared this issue ?

 

Here is my extract for my 145.012-68. Notice the date:


I am beginning to wonder if Omega during this period was using up movements and casebacks any old way. The -67 and -68 iterations are identical after all but there are 3 watches, yours, mine and Collins made on 3 days running quite far apart in numbers and bearing 2 different year iterations. Now Collins movement was put AFAIK into a Star US made case so was likely made in a rather different way to ours so in reality the date of production isn't measurable the same way, perhaps it is the date that the movement was sent to the US since AFAIK the NASA watches weren't cased in Bienne. Or were they? Or perhaps it is the date that the movement was put into the Star case but if so I am surprised the dates and numbers of yours and Collins are so close unless of course they were cased up in Bienne too. Either way I wouldn't get too excited about the serial number proximity, the NASA models used different cases so other than the serial, bear less in common than you may think.

 

Well, I guess there are times where ilovemyspeedmaster can actually be more accurate than extracts!

I'm not surprised you had a hard time finding Mike Collin's serial number. In my experiences with the whole Eisele thing, they were very tight lipped about many of the details surrounding NASA Speedmasters, for many understandable circumstances. But that probably was probably greatly heightened due to much of the information being about speedmasters that were missing, and there actually being suspicion cast on me during the ordeal. No doubt there is less reason to be secretive over Collin's watch... but still, they play much of that information rather close to the vest. which is probably why Eisele's info isn't on that list.

 

Mines 125 units away

 

I have two extracts for the same watch with different delivery dates - a military SM300

 

I assume you mean production date, right? Delivery dates often exist so I've been told, but aren't on any extract I've heard of.

 

My mistake - I meant different production dates - you are right

 

This is disturbing, especially considering the price.

 

If one is a from a few years ago I can understand this. Extracts were once done on a nod and wink and the comments would be based on what info the customer provided. Nowadays they are supposedly more rigourous and are supposedly based only on the records but who knows!

 

In my conversation with the Researcher in the Archives…I gained the impression that the Collins complete watch, was actually manufactured in Bienne…of course he could be wrong

Would in fact, the Archives just report, the Collins 321 Movement, being produced / assembled… but not actually cased ?…& then report that as a ‘Date Of Production’ ?

If,… indeed only the Movement was produced……who did the eventual casing / testing / quality control ? …Some ‘jobbing’ technician, in Houston, or NYC ?

I am also curious to know, how did the NASA cases differ ?………Where they crafted to a higher specification ?

 

What you say makes sense, perhaps the final assembly did indeed take place in Bienne. To be honest, I am not certain about Collin's Speedy which could well be all Swiss but certainly later NASA Speedmaster cases were manufactured in the US by Star Watch Case Co in order to up the % of local parts. Rather like Trump does today with his steel!

 

Since the cost of launching Apollo 11 was 25.4 Billion dollars……

I am not entirely convinced…they were concerned with, a couple of hundred bucks saving, …to justify their overall spending

This sounds apocryphal…rather than perhaps factual

 

I don't deny it sounds nuts but do a google search on Star Watch Case, buy American act, speedmaster and see what you find...

This is interesting but suggests the US cases started in the 1970s:

https://www.ghurka.com/blog/36-time-and-space-the-omega-speedmaster/

 

Weren't the Star cases in the early 70's with the 'made in America' thing?
I thought all Apollo era Speedmasters were bog standard Swiss stock.

 

I beleive that was in response to Bulova pulling out all the stops to try to get NASA to approve their watch or try to get them to disqualify the Speedmaster, being Swiss Made, and pushed the Buy American theme.

 

After being away from the forum for a while it's amazing to see that the empirical/statistical method of estimating production date - developed right here on OF - is now actually serving to correct Omega's mistakes, understandable as they are. How far things have come in just 12 months, hey @eugeneandresson?

 

Yeah, but wasn't this for the second round of tests, after the Apollo missions finished? So while 70's NASA Speedmasters had Star cases, the Apollo ones were just off the shelf?

 

That was my understanding, as well…

 

Yes, what I was trying to say was the "Buy American" act was really pushed by Bulova in the 70's.