Someone recently speculated here that the Speedmaster market might be softening. Not any more..........
thanks...very interesting "First of all – the Ultraman Speedmaster. Many people still believe that this model is wrong and never existed, but it is totally true and correct This is 145.012, orange second hand. We know it exists fromour own archives. A block of serial number was made just for a year (1968)." But which block of serial numbers, that would be interesting to know that.
So that settled the 861 question right? Or was the assumption the watch that could have been an 861 was a personal purchase?
Fascinating - the story of the Speedmaster and NASA is regularly re-invigorating and perhaps part of the reason why examples from the era continue to increase in value. I especially liked the photographs of the various original documents, reminding us of how low-tech communications were back then, even in/around an innovating technological community.
I spoke to a very friendly lady at the museum reception desk last week and she told me that it will be approx 1000m2, which is a lot bigger than the present museum, which I would roughly estimate at 200-300m2
Vindication is finally mine!!! Thank you for the link. It contains the document I have been waiting to see for the past few months. When I originally contacted James Ragan about sighing a piece for my collection we spent a few days going back and forth about the date I wanted to use for his piece. When I asked him to sign the Flight-Qualified date of March 1, 1965, date he said he would not because the date was not correct. I told him it was the only date I was familiar with and every online and print publication, including Omega, refers to the March 1, 1965, date as the official date that Speedmaster was Flight-Qualified. He told me the tests results conducted on the Speedmaster were completed prior to the March 1st date and the document we have referred to all these years only provides a summary of the test results conducted and the intention of NASA to adopt the Speedmaster for the future Gemini missions. The only date he would sign was June 1, 1965, because that is the actual date that NASA officially approves the Speedmaster for the Gemini missions. I was told that he had the the only copy of the June 1 document but he was not at liberty to share it with me yet, telling me it would be released shortly, and behold the document is in this release. Thank you James Ragan and Omega for helping set the record straight.
It will be a larger museum. They will be expanding the NASA watch presence along with adding a great collection of signed case backs that will be on long term loan to the museum.
Speedmaster models 6049 and 6126. That was new to me, although I see this has been linked to before: No, NASA never mandated any changes to OMEGA. However, the first chronographs that NASA bought were model 6049 (USA designation). These were to be used for the Gemini program. I found during crew usage for training and flight that it was very easy to bend or break the chronograph function buttons on the side. The case did not provide any protection for them. I asked OMEGA to consider redesigning the case to provide a little recess to better protect these buttons. OMEGA willingly redesigned the case and this configuration became the new version of the chronograph. It has the exact same movement – just a different case. This model was designated 6126 (USA designation). The model 6049 was used throughout Gemini and I started using the model 6126 model for Apollo and beyond. https://www.omegawatches.com/news/news-detail/1626/ https://omegaforums.net/threads/145-012-considering-purchase-help-needed.38296/#post-442180
Thank you for posting! Very interesting to read and see documents backing up how and why the Speedmaster was actually chosen by NASA. Bookmarked for future reference.
