Omega Men's Speedmaster Professional Watch

Brand Name: Omega
Model number: 3570.50
Dial window material type: anitreflective-sapphire
Clasp: push-button-fold-over-clasp
Case material: stainless-steel
Case diameter: 42 millimeters
Case Thickness: 14.30 millimeters
Band material: stainless-steel
Band length: mens-standard
Dial color: black
Bezel material: stainless-steel
Bezel Function: Fixed
Calendar: none
Movement: self-winding-automatic
Water resistant depth: 100 Feet
Discount Men's Watches

30 Year Review
After much research, I purchased an Omega Speedmaster in 1968 as an 18th birthday present to myself. There were not many chronographs available at that time (Rolex, Breitling, Omega and probably others I no longer remember). To my surprise, that summer (or next), Omega began agressive advertising that it's watch was the official timepiece of the Apollo Astronauts. It reaffirmed my choice. Thirty years later, it is still the best watch I own (including my Submariner). My only complaint is that I have gone through three or four bracelets/straps. Ironically, a new metal bracelet costs more than the original cost of my Speedmaster ($185). Interestingly, no Rolex owner has ever commented on my Submariner, but fellow Speedmaster owners always start up a conversation with each other. I cannot comment on the new Speedmasters, but mine has been dropped, thrown, drowned, frozen, heated, shaken and abused for 30 years and still runs great. I recommend factory cleaning, vacuum sealing and a new crystal every 10 years or so, just to be safe.

My last watch
When I graduated from college in 1966, my parents gave me a fine very slim gold Swiss watch. It didn't last a month in the Amazon. The stainless automatic Seiko I bought at the PX in Vietnam was stolen out of my car. Then I bought my last watch, the Omega Speedmaster Professional.

I was half way through law school when I bought it at Al's Pawn Shop in Nashville in 1974 for about $125, the most I could afford. A year later my wife gave me a tooled silver bracelet watch band for my birthday. It's the only watch I have worn since.

It has always been amazingly accurate. When it quits because I forgot to wind it, that means I have been too busy and I try to slow down. As a litigator, I use the stop watch function frequently to time my work. When it finally wore out after some 25 years, I sent it to an expert near Seattle I located online and he put it back into like new shape...for five times what I had paid for it.

In 1997 I saw the same watch in a store window in Geneva. I made a note of the price in Swiss francs and later calculated it cost around $3500 in US dollars. That's when I realized my treasured watch had probably been stolen and fenced at Al's Pawn Shop all those years before. Until then I had thought I was merely the beneficiary of a man down on his luck who needed money to get home.

To see the exact same watch on the wrist of the space suit at the Huntsville Space Museum and playing a critical role in the movie, Apollo 13, gives me a funny sense of pride at my uncanny good luck to have a watch I will never replace at such a low price. On a subconscious level I hope the satisfaction the watch has given me for these past 30+ years is somehow sensed by the owner from whom it was stolen and he is pleased. Especially since he had it adequately insured.


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