Well as if by magic Omega try to get ahead of the onslaught of Baselworld coverage on its way next week by playing the first of its trump cards available this year.
As predicted by many, but not all, the much-admired newly reintroduced to manufacture 321 movement does not feature.
The anniversary watch, in gold, as 50th anniversaries are normally celebrated with, is a re-run of a former Speedmaster the BA145.022 which was the model presented by Omega to astronauts and assorted “high heid yins” including Presidents and Vice- Presidents.
This new edition is not the former 18k gold but what Omega are calling “Moonshine Gold”, clearly Bob from marketing has been at it again.
The accompanying burgundy bezel does look wonderful and the aforementioned “Bob” does not appear to have been let loose on naming rights for the colour.
The movement for this one is the manually wound 3861 master chronometer movement and it is a thing of beauty, especially when surrounded by all that gold, and visible through the clear case back and if you look carefully at the ring surrounding the case back you will see a moon image and an earth image along with the usual Omega style commemorative text.
These two images are firstly in proportion to each other and secondly, the moon image is made of actual lunar meteorite.
Overall the watch looks stunning and the gold alloy is slightly warmer than normal 18k Gold so probably will make you feel less like Mr T than you might think.
As the first foray by Omega into its big new release arsenal for 2019 this is not a bad first salvo, it will be interesting to see how long they can dominate the media before Rolex and Patek take over next week, or will someone else Swiss-based break neutrality ahead of Basel and also try to make some early running.
Limited to 1014 pieces, just as the original was, in 18k Gold this will retail for around 32,000CHF, goodness knows what the scalping markup will be soon after, astronomical would be my guess.
