Broad arrows and a slimmer waist
By Julien Moreau, Geneva ยท
The CK2915 of 1957 is the Speedmaster that serious Omega collectors keep in the safe and rarely mention aloud, partly from modesty and partly because their insurers have asked them not to. Broad arrow hands, a steel tachymeter bezel, straight lugs: it is the watch before the legend, and most of the surviving examples have been mucked about with in ways that keep auction specialists awake at night.
The Speedmaster '57 in its 2022 form is not a reissue of the CK2915 (Omega did a limited trilogy for that) but an interpretation. Broad arrow hands, yes. Straight lugs, more or less. But the dial is modern, and the movement is the hand-wound 9906, a Master Chronometer with 60 hours, shown off through an open back. The case is 40.5 mm by 12.99 mm, slimmer and smaller than the Moonwatch, and it wears beautifully. Fifty metres.
What I do not love: the price. At ninety-seven hundred to ten thousand three hundred dollars, it is roughly two and a half thousand more than the Moonwatch, which has the stronger story and the more honest connection to its past. You are paying for the movement and the proportions, both of which are better. Whether that is worth it depends on how much you care about the Moon.
I don't, particularly. I care about 1957. So I would choose this one, and I would feel slightly guilty about it.