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  • Gus Grissom's Gold Speedmaster Goes To Auction, Czapek Collaborates With Collective Horology and Orient Star Gives An Interesting Entry Point To A Silicon Escapement

Gus Grissom's Gold Speedmaster Goes To Auction, Czapek Collaborates With Collective Horology and Orient Star Gives An Interesting Entry Point To A Silicon Escapement

Gus Grissom's watch has the second-lowest number allocated to an astronaut

Author

Vuk Radic
April 19, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 13 minutes

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time, where we have none of it to waste, so let’s get on with it.

In this issue:

  • Important Omega Speedmasters go on sale

  • Czapek teams up with Collective Horology

  • Orient Star Introduces The Avant-garde Skeleton

  • Staudt Having A Bit Of Fun With A Not-So-Automatic Prelude Chronograph

Today’s reading time: 6 minutes and 29 seconds

👂What’s new

1/ 

RR Auction is closing it’s Space Exploration and Aviation auction tomorrow and they are selling several watches that belonged to astronauts and cosmonauts. Among them are three 18K gold Speedmaster Professional “Tribute to Astronauts” watches. These “Tribute to Astronauts” watches are in fact gold Speedmaster BA145.022-69, produced by Omega between 1969 and 1973 in 1,014 pieces and offered to members of the astronaut program.

The buzz around “Tribute to Astronauts” watches started last year when RR Auctions sold Wally Schirra’s gold Speedmaster for $1.9 million. A few months earlier, Michael Collins’s gold Speedmaster sold at auction for US$765,000. Now the families of other astronauts are offering their watches up for sale.

The star of the RR Auction now is the Speedmaster that belonged to Virgil “Gus” Grissom, which was awarded to his widow posthumously as Grissom died in the fire that destroyed the Apollo 1 Command Module. The watch is presented in a special box with a personalized plaque and engraved with the words “to mark man’s conquest of space with time, through time, on time”. Grissom’s Speedmaster is also numbered #4, the second-lowest number allocated to an astronaut after Alan Shepard’s watch (#3). Numbers 1 and 2 were presented to President Nixon and Vice President Agnew, though the men declined the watches due to their high value.

The other two gold Speedmaster Professional “Tribute to Astronauts” watches available in this auction belonged to Alan Bean (Skylab Mission II and Apollo 12) and Ron Evans (Apollo 17). Both come with different boxes than the one for Grissom’s watch. Evans’s Speedmaster BA145.022 comes with Omega’s ultra-rare 3D crater box, and Bean’s comes in a different crater box that came with stainless steel edition of the watch.

RR Auctions is likely conservative with their price estimate - from $100,000+ for Evans’s watch to $350,000+ for Grissom’s watch.

2/

Collective Horology is a members-only collectors club from California that creates collaborative watches for enthusiasts and retails independent brands with limited distribution in the US. For their fourth collaboration, Collective has teamed up with independent watchmaker Czapek to create a very california-like version of Czapek’s first luxury sports watch - the Antarctique - which was launched in 2020.

Gabe Reilly, one of the founders of Collective studied at the University of Hawaii and says that he wanted to recreate the unique aquamarine hues and textures of the waters surrounding Lanikai Beach. This is the color that Czapek applied to the dial with the application of a specially sourced turquoise-coloured enamel, emphasized with a wavy texture was stamped with a hand-engraved mould to reproduce the natural irregularities of a seabed.

The Antarctique luxury sports watch stands out from the regular crowd of angular, complex cases with multi-sided bezels that tend to dominate this genre. Housed in a brushed barrel-shaped case with a round, polished sloping bezel, like other 40.5mm Antarctique models, the watch has a relatively slim height of 10.6mm. The integrated bracelet follows the lines of the case and features brushed links with C-shaped polished middle links. Inside is Czapek’s in-house automatic movement with a recycled platinum micro-rotor.

The Czapek Antarctique P.04 Lanikai x Collective Horology is a limited edition of 50 pieces, and deliveries start at the end of August 2023. The retail price is USD 26,500.

3/

Orient Star is not a watch that is often found on people’s radar. But it’s an interesting company. It’s owned by Seiko Epson, which serves as a development and manufacturing facility for Seiko, Grand Seiko and Credor quartz and Spring Drive movements. So, chances are Orient Star (the higher level of Orient) would get a good movement inside. And with the introduction of two Avant-garde skeleton models, they are attempting to bring in good looks as well.

The Orient Star Avant-garde Skeleton already exists, but now it gets a dial update and a movement update. The dial is a fully-metal affair that comes in either white or graphite, depending whether you get the black or silver version of the Skeleton. The silver model comes on a matching steel bracelet, while the black model gets a Cordura ballistic nylon strap. Both versions come in steel cases and both get the new F8F64 automatic movement with silicon escapement.

The watch will be available from 10 June and price is set at around EUR 1,850.

4/

Watch collecting is a serious affair. To serious, a casual observer would say, as nerds recite reference numbers. But every now and again someone makes a joke in the watch world. And it’s to be applauded. So let’s give it up for an anonymous collector from Kuwait who turned to Yvo Staud, the founder of Staudt Chronometrie, and asked for something that the brand did not make.

That’s how we got the Staudt “This Used To Be An Automatic” Prelude Chronograph. The Kuwaiti collector really wanted a manual chronograph from Staud and Yvo supposedly replied: “We could just screw off the rotor.” They liked this idea so much they decided not to stop on the one-off and created a 20 piece limited edition.

The watch starts off as a second-generation automatic Prelude Chronograph. It still has a 41mm wide and 13.6mm tall stainless steel case and still has a bicompax chronograph dial in black or white. There are minor changes to the dial though, the biggest being the printed “This Used To Be An Automatic” at the bottom! Inside is the automatic Valjoux 7753 chronograph movement with the rotor taken off and replaced with an 18k gold-plated bridge emblazoned with the Staudt logo.

This special edition of the Staudt Prelude Chronograph is limited to 10 pieces per dial colour and comes on either a black or brown alligator leather strap with a buckle. It’s available for a price of EUR 5,100.

5/

Some watch enthusiasts like to change up the look of their watches. That’s why we have such a vibrant market for third party straps. But others want even more personalisation, they want to change more than just a strap. That’s why brands like Formex allow you to swap bezels, while Hegid allows for case changes. In comes a new brand - Liberum, an Italian microbrand that offers a modular watch system that is budget-friendly.

The watch features a modular design consisting of five different colored outer cases, one or two inner cases (depending on the package you select), and five integrated polyurethane rubber straps. These pieces seamlessly integrate with each other, allowing you to swap and combine them for 25 different color combinations. The most impressive thing is how they managed to do this - the durable TPE outer watch cases integrate seamlessly over a stainless steel inner case encapsulating the dial and movement in a sapphire sandwich, making the swap incredibly easy.

Inside is a Seiko NH35A automatic movement with a custom rotor behind an exhibition sapphire crystal. The watch terminates into an integrated polyurethane strap with quick-release spring bars that fit cleanly into the case. The outer case is 42mm wide, 49mm lug to lug, and just under 12mm thick.

The base kit is priced at 199 Euros. This includes one dial, five outer cases, and five straps. For those who want more variety, they also offer a double combo with both dials, five outer cases, and five straps priced at at 259 Euros.

There are two major problems I see with this watch - it’s funded with a Kickstarter that is supposed to end just as this email is sent out, and as I’m writing it they still have not hit their goal. If they manage to do so, they say production starts immediately and shipping is expected to begin in September 2023. Wait and see.

The second issue I have is a bigger one - do we really want a customizable watch? It’s a fantastic idea in theory. But there’s a reason why nobody is doing it.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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⚙️Watch Worthy

A look at an off beat, less known watch you might actually like

The actual visual look and feel of the tourbillon is more impressive and feels closer to European tourbillons. Another good thing is that the hour and minute hands are actually in the center of the dial. Some legacy Chinese tourbillon movements were designed so that the hour and minute hands are actually just above the center of the dial, which made for odd-feeling, slightly asymmetric dials

⏲️Wait a minute

A bunch of links that might or might not have something to do with watches. One thing’s for sure - they’re interesting

  • Stefano Cernetic claimed he was the Prince of Montenegro, that his ancestors were Julius Caesar and the real Count Dracula. He took the French Riviera by storm, until the lies and the investigators caught up with him.

  • Have you gotten a chance to see John Wick 4 yet? Even if not, you probably saw the viral photo of Keanu Reeves with his stunt team and the Rolex Subamariners he gave them after finishing the movie. He really is too good for this world, as this profile suggests.

  • Have you ever considered just leaving everything one day and going to live in the desert? Here’s what you can learn about love, loss, and landscape over two decades of living in a 1961 Artcraft mobile home in the Utah desert

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

In 1993, 24-year-old James Scott wanted to party so bad he sabotaged the West Quincy levee in order to strand his wife on the other side of the river. What an epic move. It would have been, if it weren’t for the billions of dollars of damage he caused, leading to him being the first and only person in Missouri history convicted under an obscure 1979 Missouri law for intentionally "causing a catastrophe".

💵Pre-loved precision

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