Editor's Picks
Ultra-Cool Omega
Editor's Picks
Ultra-Cool Omega
I hate the word product. I have no problem with it when applied to consumable goods like lettuce. Or cheese. But I do have a major problem with it when applied to watches. Which is why I wince every time I attend a watch trade fair – if it’s Basel I’ll wince twice, the first time from the price of the sausages – and someone runs their hand over a shimmering new array of timepieces and says something like: “Behold our new product.” In my mind, I am hitting him in the head with that product. Especially if it is tantalum or tungsten carbide. Because watches are not product. They are ticking symbiotic companions that are meant to endure our lifetime and beyond. They are endowed with what the Greeks called anima or spirit. They are living entities that in the greatest act of magic consume only the energy we impart from our own life force by winding or wearing them. Would you call a litter of golden retrievers “product”? Well maybe you would. But then you have no soul.
My point is at Omega watches are not product to the people behind the brand. Because you can feel that every watch that they create is born out of love for their brand and for horology in general. Each time they create a technical coup like a ceramic bezel with a luminous tachymeter, you can feel their love for what they do, because only someone that adores watches, that is geeked out to the max and besotted with amorous affection for chronographs would even dream of something like that. And they do this kind of thing constantly, and because they love watches and because they love Omega in the same way that collectors do, we can feel it. They decimate our impulse control. Each time they create something special like the 2017 Speedy Tuesday, or the 2016 Silver Snoopy, or like the 2018 Ultraman, it’s as if they’ve reached into our collective unconsciousness and extracted all our dreams and hopes and compressed them into a new magical, mythical, magnificent timepiece. And when it comes to delving into their past to create inspiring new watches for the future, no one is better.
Groovy Tuesday
Case in point the Speedy Tuesday Ultraman. One thing that no one has talked about yet is that the original Ultraman – a watch with an unusually long orange chronograph hand (18.80 mm, to be exact) and a unique black satin dial found only in ref. 145.012-67 in movement numbers ranging between 26.076.xxx – 26.079.xxx was dubbed the “Ultraman” by collectors because of its appearance in the 1970s Japanese TV series The Return of Ultraman. The reason why collectors lose our minds when discussing the Ultraman is that of the 28,000 or so 145.012-67 – already a super cool watch as it’s the last Speedmaster with the legendary Calibre 321/Lemania 2310 – only 3,000 watches fall within the movement correct range. And of those 3,000 watches, only 50-odd Ultraman watches are known to exist.
Gracias James Fisk and Analog Shift. You guys are muy macho. My dear friend William Roberts, also known as Speedmaster 101, emailed me this when I asked his opinion about pulling the trigger: “I’ve been thinking about your Ultraman. You will be the only person I know to pay this much for one, but just because you are the first does not make it wrong. No one else will sell theirs… Now we have extracts and a certainty of the hand length I am happier we have a defined execution that can be verified and valued.” Roberts of course refers to how amazing it is that Omega goes through the trouble to verify and certify its vintage watches, something that provides absolute certainty and assurance to us collectors and a testament to their love for their watches both new and old.
Let’s get some initial things out of the way. Yes, it has all the incredible vintage codes we know and love. Is the stepped dial back? Yes. This would be correct for a 1968 watch. (Watches with casebacks marked 67 were assembled and delivered in 68.) Is the DON or dot-over-ninety bezel back? Hell yes it is! Also correct for a watch from this period. Does the dial have an applied Omega? You bet your sweet tuchus it does. And does it have a big-ass orange chrono seconds hand? Hell to the yeah!
A Night To Remember
I knew I was in for something special when I started to see the guys around me. It was a Who’s Who of the watch collecting community including Auro M, alias John Goldberger; Michael Tay, who is probably the watch collector and retailer I respect most on the planet; Nick Foulkes, a man so brilliant and articulate it’s as if he invented the English language; mega collector Jack Wong; the man behind Speedy Tuesday and a true inspiration, Robert-Jan Broer, vintage dealer and font of Speedmaster knowledge; and Roy Davidoff, amongst others. The other thing I realised was that considering that this was going to be one of the biggest events on the Omega calendar, the group was amazingly intimate, numbering less than 40 people.
What is also amazing about this watch is once again it is an amazingly salient demonstration that Omega loves its past. Unlike other brands that care only about the latest “novelty”, Omega cherishes every part of its history. Which it why it has an incredible museum in Bienne, probably the best watch museum curator on earth in Petros Protopapas, why it accepts any vintage watch to be refurbished or restored and will issue an extract from its archive to certify said watch and why it makes brilliant timepieces like the Speedmaster Ultraman and this particular timepiece, the First Wrist-Chronograph Limited Edition.
A Fine Vintage
His head of production, Jean-Claude Monachon, said: “They were vintage movements but we wanted to achieve two things. First, we wanted them to function perfectly. This entailed fitting the bridges and plates with modern jewels. However, because each movement is slightly different as is the case with calibres of this age, each individual element had to be analysed to ensure that placement of the jewels was optimised.” Greg Kissling said: “We actually photographed each individual wheel and studied the teeth profile and in many instances altered these to ensure that the engagement of teeth was done correctly. We used a topping tool to reconfigure or rather refine the profile of the vintage gear wheels and I can assure you that this is far more challenging and expensive that simply profile-turning new gear wheels. But we didn’t want to compromise in any way. We wanted the movements to be original and with full integrity but to work flawlessly.”