Anticipation, anticipation, anticipation! Basel is just right around the corner and there is already talk of how these two will compare. This year I would personally say is the year of the Speedmaster, there is just so much going on, and so much to anticipate. This year is definitely going to be a heavy hitter within the industry. Already people are arguing about which will be better... who knows to be honest right now only time can tell and once basel launches lets all get together as a big happy family and quarrel away about which is better side by side! I cannot wait to see the comparisons. The anticipation is killing me!

 

The Speedy Tuesday is a tremendous hit, but if the Speedy 60 has a calibre Ω321 movement, dot-over-90 bezel, and applied logo dial and crown with skinny Omega logo and premoon caseback, I don't know what could top that!

 

Not too much but maybe a cold Augustiner at the Oktoberfest.

 

If it has a 321 I will go ballistic! that would be phenomenal to bring it back from the grave.

 

Platinum with diamonds for the 60th... trust me. Limited to 60 pieces. Then a Titanium Panda limited to 1957 pieces. There will not be a 321, not going to happen.

 

Not going to happen, I agree. There is no good reason for it.

 

60th is special

HOWEVER...

You could have said same thing about the 50th anniversary model. Big year!! They will do something truly special. Unfortunately I think both of the 50th models were kind of underwhelming

 

Best reason I can think of is that the calibre 321 is the movement that was on the moon. Not the derivative, not the descendant, but the actual movement.

Additionally, the long term corporate goal expressed by Omega President Urquardt circa 2012 was a transition to all in-house, all coaxial movements, for all but one: he explicitly said Omega is committed to maintaining one hand wound movement in perpetuity, and that's in the Speedmaster moonwatch.

If going through the overhead of maintaining a single mechanical hand wound movement for one purpose - the heritage unique to the Speedmaster, why not do it right, and go with the actual movement that was on the moon?

 

Because the 321 is more expensive to build. Not as reliable, and there is no large scale tooling.

At the end of the day the same person that buys a 321 powered new watch would also buy an 861. They are not losing any sales by not making the capital expenditures to bring the production line from almost 50 years ago back to life when in Omegas eyes the movement still exists in the 861. Plus you could argue making a 321 would invalidate calling the 862 a moon watch.

 

Omega are you listening??

 

All the arguments against a 321 are sound and, sadly, I think most likely to be true. Here's to hoping whatever ways they skin the ol' 1861 that it's pretty slick.

However.. if they did do a limited 321, the larger watch internet would break, and the Omega watch-nerd internet would converge in unison and create a singularity.

 

Couldn't they have 60 321 movements sitting in a vault at Omega?
Heard plenty of stories of companies reviving rediscovered movements in their parts' storage so why not omega ?

 

No.

Does GM have 60 GTO's out in the back shed?

Companies move on. Zenith only got lucky with the EP.

 

It's in a separate thread on here (or possibly WUS?) but the 321 does live on within the Swatch family. There are some minor changes, but the movement in this other watch is closer to the 321 than the 321 is to the 1861. Photos and name of the other watch are in that thread, some 3-4 years back.

 

Are you sure that you are not confusing the cal. 321 with the Lemania 5100 ? A simplified version lives on in the Swatch family.

 

Without seeing that thread I couldn't tell you for sure, and the Swatch brand didn't ring a bell with me (what else is there besides Omega?? but I recall it was identified as a higher-end one.

 

"But the 5100 lives on. Sort of. ETA makes the 2009 C01.211 movement that has some very strong genetic links to it indeed. But this ain’t progress. There’s no central minute counter – one of the most useful features of the 5100. The jewel count is down from 17 to 15 jewels too. You’ll find it in the Tissot PRC, Couturier and a few Swatches."

http://wornandwound.com/chronography-4-lemania-5100/

 

Breguet 5237 I think it was. Picture here:

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://storage.googleapis.com/pubzapuscentral/watchprosite/breguet/91/scaled/breguet_image.458891.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.watchprosite.com/page-wf.forumpost/fi-1/ti-388101/pi-2328106/&docid=TiODw2sK2HB_mM&tbnid=FebbT6OnLDVAOM:&vet=1&w=640&h=426&itg=1&hl=en-us&client=safari&bih=559&biw=375&q=breguet 5237&ved=0ahUKEwjUnv-w_sTSAhVkh1QKHeVeDRMQMwgeKAMwAw&iact=mrc&uact=8

 

Apparently more than 40000 321 were made so to me it does not sound unrealistic to say that 60 , 50 , 10 whatever the number is, could be be in a storage room . Omega would know the answer to this assuming they would share but a categoric no is based on what?

 

Pretty sure that's not a 5100, eh...