Interviews
King Nerd on His Omega Speedmaster Reduced
I recently spoke to King Nerd on a podcast I co-host called OT: The Podcast, and thought that one-of-a-kind Omega Speedmaster Reduced story would be perfect for Speedy Tuesday.
Tell us about your unique Snoopy Speedmaster Reduced?
“Basically, when I was working with George (Bamford), I always loved going to his office — The Hive — there are just toys everywhere. One day I expect he’s going to press a button and an Aston Martin DB5 is going to come out from under the table or something. So I’d be in there, working away and thinking I really want one of these watches. And at the time, I was on an alright wage, but I wasn’t going to buy a watch because I had my first child, and had to buy other things instead. So I was wracking my brain and I thought ‘I’ve got to do something that George hasn’t got’, and I knew I wanted to engrave something. Then I came across Snoopy and the Omega connection and I knew it had to be something Snoopy. But I wanted one that no one else had. And then I came across the Schumacher edition, and straight away I knew I knew I had to connect Snoopy with Omega and Schumacher. I got the yellow one because I prefer the colour. It’s bright, and I don’t really wear anything red.”
What were your first thoughts?
“So I got the watch, and it’s funny, I didn’t look at the size of the watch, so when I got it I thought ‘has this shrunk?’ – I didn’t realise it was the Reduced model, and I was quite pleasantly surprised as I’ve got small wrists and it fits perfectly. I looked at the caseback, and I didn’t realise it was going to have all the stuff on the back — there was the seahorse and all the rest. I started contacting people on Instagram to find a blank caseback, and everyone said I was going to find that hard, I would have had to get one made.”
What did you do?
“I went to the people I knew at Purdey (where Johnny used to work), and asked them to grind everything off the back, so I would have a completely blank canvas. It became a massive operation; everyone was worried about going through it. We were measuring it with micrometres, and grinding it by hand. We were getting really close, and I said stop, I’ll polish it, and you won’t notice anything left over.
How has it worn over the years?
“Great actually, stainless steel is a horrible metal to engrave, but I understand why they do watch cases out of it. You can beat the shit out of them, and they survive. There’s nothing a polish or a brush can’t sort out.”
Check out Kingnerd on Instagram for more of Johnny’s work. And click here to listen to the full interview on OT: The Podcast.