Issue 131: Omega Speedmaster FOIS Review

Can this watch end a decade-long search for 'the one'? Welcome to my Speedmaster therapy session

Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that has listened to you and is starting work on The Big Holiday Quiz. Three quarters of respondents said they would be interested in another quiz, so one is on its way¹. You’ll get that in your inboxes on December 20th; I’ll give you a week off to work on it, send you the answers on January 3rd and resume normal service on January 10th. And this year there will be a prize! More details with the quiz itself but I will give the three best scores a random gift from my extensive selection of watch-related merchandise. Could be a baseball cap, could be a leather travel case, could be a Breitling snow globe. You just never know. Obviously the real prize is the sense of immense accomplishment and personal growth associated with triumphing in an exceptionally nerdy test.

Today, it’s all about the Omega Speedmaster Anniversary Series (as it’s now called) and my review of the, er, second First Omega In Space. Omega lent me a watch for review, and as you’ll see, I found plenty to say. Enjoy!

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The Speedmaster and me

Omega and I go back a long way. My father wears an Omega, given to him by his father, and when I was 18 my parents, wanting to continue the tradition, bought me a mid-size Seamaster that I still treasure, even if I don’t wear it much any more.

For about a decade I wore it religiously, treating it like a daily beater long before I ever heard the phrase. I valued it enormously on both a sentimental and financial level (for a long time it was my most expensive possession, by some margin) but I wore it everywhere and it shows. If I’m honest, part of me misses having that attitude to watches; the minute I became aware of the watch world proper I started to look at that watch differently. I developed a snobbery towards quartz watches, which when combined with both the means, the access and the awareness to buy other watches meant that the Seamaster was confined to a drawer and has never really recovered. Writing this makes me want to replace its now-flat battery and give it some love again, but that’s for another time. My point is that I knew about Omega long before I knew about watches and that sentimental connection has always coloured my feelings towards the brand. I don’t consider myself a raving fanboy, but if pushed I would be ‘team Omega’ over ‘team Rolex’.

I don’t remember exactly when I became infatuated with chronographs but it probably had plenty to do with the fact I became a watch journalist in 2011, when the collector community’s passion for Daytonas had burst its banks and was sweeping up Heuer, Universal Geneve, Omega and others in a rising tide of chrono-mania that wouldn’t dissipate for at least four more years. It pleased me as an Omega owner, no matter how modest the watch in question, that the Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch was spoken of in such reverential terms by writers and experts whose knowledge far exceeded my own. As a kid I’d consumed books on space, memorising arcane facts and figures; about the only thing I remember from a 2001 visit to the USA was the National Air and Space museum in Washington. So of course I fell for the moonwatch story (at least, before the endless anniversary reissues, and my professional obligations to write about them, numbed my sense of excitement somewhat).

In short I have had the stereotypical Speedmaster experience, save for one vital part. I’ve never owned one, and this despite numerous watch world luminaries earnestly declaring that all watch fans must, at some point, own a Speedmaster. I have come close a couple of times; in 2015 I had the money burning a hole in my pocket and stood in the Regent St boutique umming and ahhing over the ‘Tintin’ Speedmaster before uttering those words we all know so well: “I think I’m just going to think about it for a bit longer”. I could have had it on my wrist for a little over three grand - less if I’d gone to Omega and played that most privileged card, the ‘press discount’ request - so in recent times seeing them balloon in value, peaking north of £12,000 or so, was a bittersweet experience. But I doubt I’d ever have sold it - not least because it is a confident man who realises such a profit on something he’s used his professional position to purchase for cheap. In any case, the money was earmarked for another cause: within a week or two of that Regent St spur-of-the-moment flirtation, I’d done what I knew deep down I was always going to and bought a diamond engagement ring instead. As luck would have it, if you’re reading this on the day it goes out, I proposed nine years ago to the day, and so far I can say that was a better investment than any watch (!)

But Speedmasters still called to me. Before the Tintin dazzled me with its chequered dial - can you believe I wasn’t sure if it might not just be ‘a bit much’, a bit loud? - I had fallen pretty hard for the 2012 First Omega In Space. This came along very soon after I had started holding myself out as a watch writer of any description, and I wasn’t in the market for it at that point. I held a candle for it for years, though, and at least once a year I’d build up a head of steam and convince myself I should just go ahead and bloody well buy it, but I never did. Although it is technically true to say I never quite had the spare money at the right time, a whole host of other watches managed to enter my collection during the period in question, so I don’t think that’s really the whole story. I’m not sure what stayed my hand, really, but a few probably quite recognisable emotions/fallacies are likely.

For one thing, I was spoilt for choice. Could I really be sure this was the best way to spend £3,000 on a watch, if that was something I was going to do? My simple relationship with Omega, pre-journalism, had given way to a more nuanced view, and I spent my money on watches from Nomos, and Tudor, and Oris, and Seiko, and other brands that at any given time felt ‘right’. None of which I regret, but still: no Speedmaster. There were other problems with being so close to the inner workings of the industry: I became acutely aware that something else would be along next year, or the year after, and in a bizarre way I managed to convince myself that it would be daft to buy the watch now that it had been out for a few years, because every passing month made it more likely that Omega would surely send out a press release the minute I bought mine announcing a version that I’d prefer even more. The CK2998 pulsometer got my heart racing (sorry, couldn’t resist) for a bit, and seemed to substantiate this theory; surely the perfect Speedmaster was only just around the corner. All I had to do was wait. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t say what wasn’t right about the FOIS, or what it was exactly I was waiting for. I’d know it when I saw it.

I also got greedy, or arrogant, and started to think that actually, why should I hold out for a Speedy when with a bit of luck I could save up for something on the next rung of the ladder - something that would signal my status as a well-informed watch insider of impeccable taste. I started to set my sights on a Zenith El Primero - and thought I’d hit the jackpot when the Chronomaster Original appeared. Once again I was achingly close to tapping in my PIN, but the economy imploded and for once, I was thankful I’d opted to sit on my hands. In the meantime two things had happened: Omega had discontinued the FOIS, and everything with hands and a hairspring had suddenly got insanely, incredibly expensive.

That, more or less, brings us to the present day and the somewhat unanticipated revival of the FOIS mantle in the form of a watch that I’ve spent the last few days wearing. Is it Christmas come early? Or an awkward reunion with an old flame where you both realise that things will never be the way they were when you were young? For those of you reading who don’t share my exact personal history with this watch and are regarding this therapy session with something between baffled amusement and wry curiosity, I will also try, at least, to provide something of an objective verdict.

The Omega Speedmaster Anniversary Series ‘First Omega In Space’

I’ll deal with the price later on, when we think about the watch in context and its competitive set. On its own merits as an item, there’s plenty to think about.

I can’t help comparing it to the 2012 ‘original’², and it’s a lot more different than you realise from the pictures and basic specs. Or to put it another way, the combined effect of the individual changes is more dramatic than I expected. It is tempting to think of it as a sequel, an upgrade, especially given the obvious progress on a technical front, but the experience is actually closer to a big-budget Hollywood remake. The Departed vs Infernal Affairs, perhaps.

Obviously the Omega of 2012 wasn’t an indie starlet hiding in the wings, it was a mainstream mega-brand; it’s just that the intervening years have seen it become even more so. The company has introduced a wealth of technical improvements, most of which I will skate over here because I know you are all familiar, more or less. In 2012, the partnership with METAS was still three years away, nothing was Master Chronometer certified and the idea of tinkering with the Speedmaster’s movement was a long way off.