'Straight Writing' Eye candy

Just checked my EoA.... July 2 1971, one day after yours.

Just saw this awesome thread, love those straight writing 69 Speedies!

Mine is quite unique, as it comes with the Apollo XI caseback AND a 220 bezel. According to the Moonwatch Only book, this combination has never been seen before, so I did quite some research: according to the extracts, the watch (movement nr. 30.596.XXX) was produced in October 1970 and delivered to Argentina.

I got it from a dealer who was located in Argentina (and bought it there), so I have no reason to believe that the watch was altered in any ways. The production date and mov.nr. also fits perfectly for the short production time of the 220 bezel.


bezel.

I'm certainly not doubting any thing that you've said and it further enhances what you said regarding that it was literally never left Argentina and you bought it from a dealer there that bought it from the original owner. WOW - talk about a "piece unique"!

In the course of my research I found quite some watches with Apollo XI caseback that were NOT delivered to Japan, but to other countries. One of these examples, which was delivered to Switzerland in June 1970, is pictured on p74 and p75 in Roy & Sasha Davidoff‘s „The ultimate Speedmaster Exhibition“ book.

According to the MWO book (2nd edition, p.157), there were three different fonts for the Apollo XI casebacks. It seems that the early deliveries in 1970 (like mine and the watch in Davidoff‘s book mentioned above) had casebacks with fatter fonts than later ones.

This is the watch on p.74 of a.m. Davidoff book:

Compared with the research and findings in Moonwatch Only, this watch has too many incompatibilities for me to give much weight to it having left the factory with an Apollo XI caseback: DON bezel, June '70 production date, delivery to Switzerland.

The MWO book is no doubt THE reference book with regard to Speedies, there is no doubt about that. It is the most comprehensive and detailed research base for basically all watches and aspects of the Speedmaster history. But having to cover all Speedies of all times, new findings by watch collectors and/or enthusiasts on sometimes minor topics and discussing them here can only help in developing an even more comprehensive database.

This was the reason, why I did a lot of own research, as my watch, the watch pictured in the Davidoff book and a few other steel SW-caseback watches I found on the net did not „meet“ the criteria stated in the book. Also, most of the limited gold Apollo XI’s were produced/delivered in 1970, some even in 1969. I am sure, nobody would dare to call those Franken or Prototype watches.

I also had a long talk to Petros from the Omega Museum on that topic when I met him on one occasion. What he basically said was, that it was (and still is) not uncommon to assemble the watches with parts that were in stock. From 1967 to 1970 there were quite some changes in the Speedmaster model history as you all know (movement, bezel, dial...), hence also the transitional models.

So it could very well have happened, and it for sure happened, that some „leftover“ DON bezels found their way onto a 69 model, and nobody cared about it. Don‘t forget, that the hype around DON bezels started just a couple of years ago, Regarding the 220 bezel, things are even more bizarre: this is basically a faulty bezel, and it took Omega app. three months to discover that they mounted false bezels on their watches, and they even were sold with those false bezels.

So, coming back to my watch: as I said, the watch was delivered in October 1970, which falls EXACTLY into the production period of the 220 bezel. The caseback is EXACTLY the same as the one in the Davidoff book. Most of the gold APOLLO XI Speedies were delivered in 1969/70. Do I think the Argentinian first owner of the watch had any reason to alter the watch in any way? In the 70‘s, 80‘s, 90‘s where nobody gave a shit on those details? I don‘t think so, and for good reason.

Now, what is my personal conclusion? Either the watch is legit and left the Omega factory in this constellation, or the caseback was changed later (probably during service), which at least to me seems unlikely. Probably we should be a bit more open for serious discussion about some aspects of so called „hard facts“.

Or the previous owner sourced a commemorative caseback, and put it on his watch. There is no way to prove this alternative to be wrong as well 😗