#ORIENT VINTAGE WATCH EBAY PROFESSIONAL#

And I’d go into mission control and say, “Hmmm… your clock is off about two seconds!” They’d say, “What? What!” This was before the atomic clocks were around, so we had a lot of fun with it. They took the watches and made them super-accurate, in all six different positions.

And then we took them to the Cape, and Pan American Airlines was the custodian of all the technical stuff at the Cape. We bought them, and NASA had nothing to do with it. So Deke had an Omega, and I had an Omega. Deke Slayton and I were both working on the mission, and Deke was replaced, and Scott Carpenter took that mission, and I took the next mission.

A Conversation With Wally Schirra Super-accurateĬhuck Maddox : Since you were the first person to wear a Speedmaster into space, were you how Omega was brought into NASA? Did you bring them in together, or was it someone else?.

At the time, you could pick these watches up for the equivalent of less than €5K, which people still thought was a lot of money for a gold Speedmaster. My watchmaker at the time had one in his collection, and it was his prized possession. That must have been an incredibly special moment.Ī funny side note is that one of the first special Speedmasters I had in my hands when I started collecting watches back in the 1990s was one of the 1,014 gold Speedmaster watches. They always impressed me and made me think of that evening at the Warwick Hotel when Omega presented them to the astronauts. I’ve seen many of these gold Speedmaster Apollo XI “Tribute to Astronauts” models, including those for President Nixon and some of the NASA astronauts. The bracelet was also slightly different from the regular bracelet in steel, tapering to just 14mm at the clasp.

Instead of a standard black dial with white pencil hands, this commemorative watch has a solid gold dial with black onyx hour markers and black pencil hands.

#ORIENT VINTAGE WATCH EBAY PROFESSIONAL#

It was an 18K gold version of the regular Speedmaster Professional with the hand-wound caliber 861. Unlike today when these watches would sell out in a flash ( and did in 2019), the gold BA145.022-69 was in Omega’s collection for several years. In total, Omega produced 1,014 pieces of this watch from 1969 onwards. Image source: RR Auction Speedmaster Apollo XI “Tribute to Astronauts” These examples carried numbers 1001 through 1008 and the same commemorative text as the first 26 watches for the astronauts.

Later, in 19, eight more NASA astronauts received the gold Omega Speedmaster Professional BA145.022-69 watches. This meant that numbers 3 to 28 were allocated to the astronauts. Omega offered three additional watches to the families of the Apollo 1 astronauts who died in a terrible accident during a launch rehearsal test. Both had to decline due to the value of the gift, but the 23 astronauts at the dinner accepted the burgundy-bezel Speedmaster Professional watches. These watches were all individually numbered, and numbers 1 and 2 were offered to President Nixon and Vice President Agnew. Wally Schirra wearing his gold Speedmaster Professional BA145.022-69 - Image source: NASA Banquet in Houston, TexasĪt the banquet on November 25th, 1969, Omega offered the astronauts a special commemorative edition of the Omega Speedmaster Professional in yellow gold.

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