zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

After living 10 years with my rugged Seamaster Pro(during those years I purchased other watches, including a Seamaster for my wife, but no other Omegas.) I decided to investigate all the crazy ravings about the Speedmaster Professional, by adding a preowned model to my personal inventory. After searching furiously on the web, I decided to actually try a Pro Mark II first because it was equipped with a mineral glass cyrstal and was more watertight than the Pro. Fellow Speedmaster owners may see where I was heading here. I was thinking that I might retire my Seamaster to a backup position and try out this whole cal. 861 mechanical movement madness. I found a nice Mark II at Bernard Enterprises and after I received it I sent it out for a complete overhaul to include new dial, hands and bracelet. It came back looking great.(Tom Gref did the work, BTW) I immediately started wearing the Pro Mark II everywhere. It looked cool, had great luminous hands and readibility and was highly, highly accurate.(I know this because I also have an X-33 to compare all my other watches against. The X-33 will be covered in a later installment.)

I was now hooked. They say it takes only one try to become addicted to crack. If that is true then I had discovered the crack cocaine of the watch world. I marveled at the beauty of the cal. 861 movement, I admired the intricate and high quality craftsmanship of the watch and it's bracelet, and amazingly, I needed more.....

I had to have a Speedy Pro, I also had to have an Speedy Auto to round out my collection. So....I found a really nice preowned Speedy Pro at Bernard Ent.(they are beginning to really like me at this point) and I ordered 2 Speedy Autos from 2 different internet grey market vendors. One was the Pro look-a-like ref: 3510.50 and the other was the really cool looking date model ref: 3813.53.26. Since I already had a Pro coming I decided to send back the 3510.50 and keep the really cool date model. (Based on my experiences with the grey market guys, I'm not convinced they are the evil-doers that some of us perceive them to be...)

At this point I now have 4 Speedmasters and A Seamaster(not to mention a few other cats and dogs...Movado's etc.)I am having a hard time trying to wear all these watches as much as I would like too...hmmm, maybe it's time to thin the flock. During this time period I also took a job back in the area of the rest of my family and I finally get to have more time with my brother. We spend alot of time together (to our wives dismay) having a good time and generally acting like kids. My brother had long since unloaded the TAG I gave him and had only a Swiss Army brand watch as his companion. Feeling guilty for hoarding so many Omega's to myself, and knowing that my brother could learn to share in my addiction I gave my trusted Seamaster Pro to my brother......

In Part III, I note the absence of a highly watertight and rugged watch as well as talk about the Speedmaster X-33!