Dear fellow members of this fine forum,

I've asked this on some other forums, without answers still:

1. There have been two limited edition Italy models some time ago. I'm pretty clear about the one with the completely white/cream dial. But there has also been a panda dial one. Chronomaddox says it came out in the 80's with caliber 863. Omega archive says it came out in 1997/1998 with caliber 1863. Also they differ in case number, 345.0808 vs. 345.0818. I am aware of the Mitsukoshi Speedy with the same dial (?), as I already owned one of them. Could it be that OMEGA archives mixed them up?



2. Does anyone have (or is there anything in the book?) a picture of the limited edition Speedmaster Professional '(40 pieces) Edition for Japanese market' BA 145.0122 - PIC 3690.30 (1997)? There is not one picture of this watch on the net, even OMEGA can not supply any more information, but they are also aware of its existence.

Big thanks to all trying to help me figure some of the last details on my Speedy geek journey ;-)

Kind regards,
Stefan

 

Hi Stefan

Yes, there is a picture in Moonwatchonly of ref. 3690.30. But it is a yellow gold model (case) of which only 40 pieces were made in 1997 for the Japanese market. It has a silvery-white dial with a black minutes scala an d subdials (Panda). It had a numbering on the caseback bevel (xx/40). the hands were yellow gold, leather strap with folding clasp in yellow gold.
There is a disclaimer in the book, so I don't want to be the first one to copy a picture.... but maybe the author who is an active member of this forum can post a picture.
kind regards, Thomas

 

what kind of disclaimer is in the book? for the last 20 years we shared information , we received from the archives in bienne, freely on omega fora. that built a strong collectors knowledge base over the years. i hope it continues, if new infos come to light in the book. and not beeing withhold from collectors.......remember, there have been many books over the years. and many infos, compiled in the latest book, come from us. kind regards. achim

 

Hi Thomas,

thank you very much!

About posting the picture: to be honest, the release of the book has me very tempted, but 250 bucks is really steep. I wanted to see if the book answers detailed questions I am desperate to answer for months. In this case it seems to be so and I think I am going to pull the trigger. By posting the picture I don't think that you keep people from buying the book, instead I think it will actually encourage people to buy the book. They see that it is 'complete'.

 

Hello Stefan and Achim,

Sorry for not being very responsive to questions, so many thing to do and more time to devote to family after 2.5 years of hard work.

To answer Achim's concern, everybody know that there are copyrights on ALL books, not only on ours, these are the rules. But also on all products. I do not want to do a theory about that and furthermore the copyright belongs to the publisher, not to the authors. Anyway, I have no problem to share (isn't the book a sort of sharing?) a picture.
There are better photos posted on another forum, I'll try to find the link.


Regarding the first question: to me, this panda version did not exist, but is probably one more Omegamania bullshit. A few years ago, I had to change the dial of my 345.0818 and at Omega they said that there is only one version of dial: all cream. Furthermore, the s/n of that sold by Omegamania is very high (77.148.083), whereas the range I observed for 345.0818 is 48.370.xxx to 77.082.xxx.

Best regards,
Greg

 

Found the link, but no more pictures: http://orologi.forumfree.it/?t=25271930

They call it Newman. We call it The Golden Panda.

Pay attention that the dial might well have inspired designers for the Michael Schumacher Speedmaster a few years later.

 

I agree, the black ring does make the small. However, I find it unique and rather attractive. Something tells me it's rather expensive ;-(

 

Hey Greg,

thank you very much! I'm so glad I've joined this forum to meet guys like you.

The thread you are pointing to is actually the only thread I've also found for the watch and made me believe in its existence (so I took my time to write to OMEGA). But the pics are gone long time ago as you mention.

My quest was to "find" all white/cream dial hand-wound OMEGA Speedmasters, which is now fullfilled

Kind regards,
Stefan

 

Thanks.
The Museum does not own this model. Probably all are in Japan.