The Omega Speedmaster is a watch with a lot of horological significance. It was the first watch on the moon, it is an exceptional value, and is one of the best tool watches available. Come with me on a journey into space, towards the moon and back down to earth.

Omega Speedmaster Professional “Moonwatch” | Photo Credit: u/HorologyHouse (reddit)

Omega originally released the Speedmaster in 1957, over 50 years ago. Over the years many models of the Speedmaster have been released. The most popular model is the Speedmaster Professional or “Moonwatch”. The moonwatch will be the main focus of this article, but we will dive into some other variations of the Speedmaster also.

The modern Moonwatch uses a calibre 1863 to drive the watch. The calibre 1861 was released in 1996 and is rhodium plated. The modern case reference is, who fucking knows because Omega’s modern references are stupid long strings of randomized digits (311.30.42.30.01.005). My point is, the modern “Moonwatch” is not a moon watch. The movement was made in 1996, we went in the moon 27 years prior. The modern case is not the 105.012 reference like the original case was. The modern movement is based on the calibre 321 but is not the calibre 321. The modern “Moonwatch” is a marketing gimmick.

The price of a Speedmaster Pro at the time of this writing is $5,350 for the hesalite crystal version or $6,350 for the sapphire crystal version. In 1975 the Speedmaster Pro cost roughly $320. The minimum wage back then was $2.10 which means it would cost about 19 working days (8 hours/day) of minimum wage to buy the Speedmaster in ’75. However now in 2019 the minimum wage in the US is $7.25 and so it would take about 92 working days of minimum wage to buy the “same” Omega Speedmaster. I have attached a graph below.

Price of Omega Speedmaster compared to US minimum wage. Source: Me

As you can see, the value of the Speedmaster is pretty terrible, especially since it is a tool watch. You may be thinking “I can get a used Speedmaster Reduced for only $1,500! That would only be 25 days of minimum wage in the US which is comparable to the 19 days worked in 1975!” You are correct, you can buy the worst chronograph ever made for around $1,500. The Reduced Speedy is the absolute worst value in watches that you can purchase, other than fakes.

Speedmaster Reduced | Photo Credit: u/nqtri (reddit)

The Speedmaster Reduced is a terrible watch. It uses an ETA movement, which is fine on its own, but Omega decided to use a Dubois-Depraz module for the movement. This module should be called the Dubious Dubois Module because it is a pain in the ass to work on. When you buy that Speedy Reduced it will probably need a service. This is because it costs around $750 to service this god-forsaken watch and no one wants to pay the servicing costs. My good friend Danbo said it best, ” From a design point of view its pretty obvious they didn’t actually put much thought into the watch, they just put it together from scrap parts … Everything about the watch feels very poorly proportioned.”

Overall this blog post took me all day to write. It is probably factual and that is good enough for me. My final verdict is: The Speedy is a shitter. Ciao!

This article has been updated to include the correct manufacturer of the ETA module used in the speedmaster reduced, and changed calibre 1863 to 1861 which is a more accurate representation of the movement used in the Hesalite version of the Speedmaster Pro discussed in this article.