When it comes to celebrate some significant anniversaries or big events of certain big replica watch brands, it’s the universal rule that the brands will try their best to create some amazingly wonderful presentations to celebrate the important big days. Omega has revealed their latest Limited Edition Speedmaster replica watch model at the 2014 Baselworld exhibition. Perpetuating their enduring association with all aspects of man’s success in space, this new design, the Omega Speedmaster Professional Apollo-Soyuz is issued as a tribute to the first international space flight on the 35th Anniversary of the event.
The Omega Speedmaster, in spite of its age, keeps an essential element of the brand’s range of designs and wears, its years considerably well, being in most part true to the 1957 original. Nevertheless, the new edition is a striking interpretation indeed and to stress this as well as commemorating the historic 44-hour unison in space of the US Apollo module and Soviet Russia’s Soyuz on July 17, 1975, it’s dial is constructed by a material rarely found anywhere on earth – meterorite!
The thrilling texturing on each dial of the 1975 pieces is exclusive to that watch, as naturally no two sections of meteorite can be the same, so each model is truly one-of-a-kind! Being made from a single piece of the meterorite, Omega have succeed in presenting the light/dark contrast of the dial and it’s subdials by preserving the oxidised blackened outer ‘crust’, crafted under the ferocious temperatures withstood during the metallic space rock’s entry into the earth’s atmosphere, and for the recessed subsidiary dials, we see the natural color of the meterorite. The dial is further emphasized by the delicate use of red detailing on the tip of the chrono seconds hand and in it’s ‘Speedmaster’ motif.
On the case back there’s a handsome motif of the two spacecraft with the names of the astronauts Lieutenant General Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand and Donald K ‘Deke’ Slayton and the cosmonauts Lieutenant General Valeri Kubasov and Alexei Leonov. Each replica watch case is curved with the edition number.
I have to confess to writing this article while wearing my first original watch, a 2005 Gemini 4, First Spacewalk 40th Anniversary Speedy Professional – the one that designed with the blue dial – Therefore, it would be fair to say that I have more than a fondness for the Speedmaster. The new Apollo-Soyuz edition is a surprising stainless steel replica watch and is featured in a sapphire crystal, as opposed to the non-scratch resistant hesalite. Its 42mm diameter replica watch case houses the legendary Calibre 1861 hand-wound movement.
Price expected to be about 6400 or $7500 with availability from July (but you’d want your name on it sooner if you want one!). It’s a stuff of beauty to my eyes, however, that’s a lot for a steel Speedmaster. Yet, the other side of the coin is its amazing exclusivity and collectability. Only the real valuable thing that has the power and the charm to last for a long time and never be washed away by the tide of the time. Unless Omega employs meterorite in further designs, this edition could be a keeper with a premium in the coming days.
