zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

Hi, popping over from the Heuer forum. I'm just back from a trip to Berlin and thought this bit of my report might be of interest to you Omega guys:

Much as in New York, there was something to be found in the department stores though. To be specific, in KaDeWe, the “flagship” department store in Berlin – it’s tagline of “the largest department store in continental Europe” always vaguely amuses me, with its implicit recognition that Harrods is larger. Not sure how big GUM is in comparison either, if we follow the lax definition of Europe that UEFA seems to adopt (Israel included???). Anyway, that’s kind of by the by. What caught my attention was the display in the windows outside. Each window was occupied by one or more Omegas, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. The watches were all on loan from the Omega Museum. KaDeWe seems to have quite strong links to Omega – they had an equally large display of some of the watches that were to be sold at Omegamania before that took place too. As soon as you went inside, it was clear that the theme continued, with a big display of both watches and moon landing paraphernalia.

Whereas the watches outside were models Omega had released to commemorate the landings, those inside included some of the watches actually worn by astronauts (it makes me wonder whether anyone visiting the Omega museum within the last few weeks noticed large holes in the collection – guess they have enough to keep coverage up, even with a significant amount out on loan).

There were astronaut watches from Thomas Stafford,

Donn Eiseles and Alexei Yeliseyev (though I guess that should be cosmonaut watch in that case),

as well as a JFK watch and the 18k gold Speedie offered to Nixon that he declined to accept.

Also, they had the Alaska Project 1 and 2 watches that Omega built to try and improve on the Speedmaster for space use (unnecessarily according to NASA!), which I found interesting - especially as I found the recent Alaska Project LE to be an attractive watch. The exhibition runs until 24th August, if you happen to find yourself in Berlin and have an interest in the moon watches - the fact it's in Berlin's biggest department store should keep the better half happy too!

There was a nice “newspaper” memorabilia item that Omega had produced too, with some moon landing details and a double-page spread of 36 Omega watches with a moon or space connection. I don’t really want it, so if there is an Omega collector out there who does, let me know and I can send it on (preferably in Europe, so the postage costs aren’t too high!).