On The Wrist : #speedytuesday #lastmanonthemoon

What better day to sport on a Speedy, if not on #speedytuesday?

And what better Speedy to sport on #speedytuesday, if not the #lastmanonthemoon?

Right, I would admit that I was probably still in a spot of honeymoon phase with this new acquisition. After all, the Omega Speedmaster Apollo 17 45th Anniversary Last Man On The Moon Limited Edition (what a mouthful!) was launched back in Baselworld 2017 and sold-out to a waiting list of collectors in a short period of time.

This collector's edition was created to commensurate 1972's final Apollo mission in which mankind exited the moon surface for the last time todate. The said LMOTM i.e. astronaut Gene Cernan, stepped off the moon at GMT 05.34 and this key piece of historical time was engraved on the dial. I would refrain from repeating some of the earlier points in my earlier entry @ http://andywristwatches.blogspot.com/2019/01/ones-speedy-journey-speedy-speedy.html.

Since this mission was back in 1972, which was defined as the golden age of space travel, Omega designed the LMOTM with a gold case, which was initially launched at 72 pieces. However, there was so much interests and requests for additional pieces that Omega acceded. The gold case was limited to 272 pieces and stainless steel case to 1,972 pieces. 

Many of us moon watch collectors were collectively over the moon then.

However, finding a piece would proved to be a challenge as this was limited to different countries' allocation and my AD informed that Malaysia only had a few pieces. The pieces were quickly allocated for hardcore moon watch collectors. There wasn't even 1 piece out in the local grey market (as could be easily seen for CK2998 and Ultraman, going for big monies due to the high demand) as collectors kept these treasured LMOTM pieces away under lock and key.

Last year, an uncollected NOS was found in Omega Malaysia's stock and I couldn't retrieved it soon enough. The LE no. was nothing to shout about, but beggars can't be choosers. However, I did not have real opportunity to wear and enjoy it, as a fellow collector put on his best rendition of Puss-in-boots' eyes and me being a big o' softie let the piece go to his collection.

But whom would have guessed that my requests for ADs to track another piece would subsequently come out with another NOS at Omega Switzerland, kept aside for someone of importance. After repeated requests, Omega acceded to ship the piece to my Malaysian AD and whom would believed that I would be able to get the sold-out LMOTM for a 2nd time; and this time with a nice LE no.

And the cool part was that since both my LMOTM came through official channels, they had the new Omega 5-year warranty instead of the previous 2-year warranty during the 2017 launch. Talk about having one's cake and eating it too...

After weeks of waiting, I was finally able to bring the LMOTM home. This was the package that I received- and since it's just a week to the Chinese New Year, I received some angpow packets to go with the moon watch.

NB : Hmmm, not sure if the astronauts brought angpows to the space for auspicious meanings?

Check out the etching of Sun God, Apollo looking at the moon, at the 9 o'clock sub-dial. The case back had the same engraved too.

If you noticed that the colour of the dial seemed different across the pictures, that was because the dial was made from ceramic. In darker lighting, it looked rather subdued but put in in bright lighting, and the blue dial really popped out! And when you shine yellow spotlight on it, the play of ceragold across the blue dial truly was captivating.

And did you know that this was the only moon watch with the racing dial pattern as could be seen below :

Amongst the recent moon watch that I had e.g. Panda, CK2998, and Ultraman, I would opined that this LMOTM seemed to be the most attractive of the lot and the history behind it made it all the more special.

Paired with a leather rally strap atypical of moon watch, I found this LMOTM to be a really interesting piece and it had earned its place in my collection. Excuse me while I go gaze at it even more :)