My first rep – an Omega Speedmaster Professional “Moon Watch†from Ruby – arrived about a week ago, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on it in case they’re of interest or use to anyone else considering the same watch.
Why a Speedmaster Pro?
Well, I started looking for a new watch – not a replica, just an ordinary watch – a couple of months ago. I was prepared to spend up to around £200 on the right watch, but I struggled to find anything that took my fancy. Some came close, like the Kalashnikov Justice AK-2282 and a few Seikos (the SND721P1 and SND221P1, for example), but there was always something putting me off – a clumsy font, a cluttered dial, a busy bracelet, a slight lack of elegance.
Then I stumbled across a picture of a Speedmaster Pro, which reminded me of what a wonderful looking watch it is – classy and (no pun intended) timeless. Sadly, at £1675 a new one was out of the question. So too was the £700+ being asked for a secondhand one on eBay. But then I started to wonder if I could get a replica of it, and Google helped me find this place…
While doing my homework on replicas, I couldn’t help but be struck by how it seems that the upmarket brands get all the best designs. Some of them – Omega’s Seamasters and Planet Oceans spring immediately to mind – are not even particularly special designs as such, they just look right in terms of size, proportions, font, etc. Yet while such styling, or similar good looks, could easily be applied to a more affordable, more mainstream watch, that never seems to happen. Is it simply that the top names have the best designers, I wonder, or is it that the top brands are all part of groups that also own the more mainstream makes (e.g. the Swatch Group owns Omega, Swatch, Tissot and others) and therefore the best designs are kept for the more expensive watches, and the cheaper watches are held back to give the more expensive ones a visual edge? Hmm… Fortunately (and this won’t be news to you!), the other thing I discovered is that there are some damn fine-looking reps out there making these wonderful designs a bit more affordable! OK, they’re not all 100 percent accurate, but remove your spot-the-difference hat and many look very, very good in their own right.
The options
After considering a few other contenders I eventually decided it was still a Speedmaster I wanted, and many hours of searching and researching followed. It was worth it, though, as I discovered there are many subtly different Speedy reps on offer. I decided to go for one of the more expensive hand-wind versions, as the “Lemania†movement seems to have a good reputation, but even then there were still several versions to choose from. For the benefit of others who may be looking to buy a hand-wind Speedy now or in the future, I’ve posted my findings here.
Buying
I only wanted to buy from a reputable dealer, and I decided it was Ruby’s Speedmaster rep that I liked most, so I got in touch with her ([email protected]) and she was very helpful in confirming exactly which version she had available. In fact, her service was excellent: she always responded to my e-mails within 24 hours; she even, unrequested, e-mailed snapshots of the very watch she was sending me before she dispatched it. When I gave the thumbs-up, she shipped it via EMS and it was delivered to me in the UK (by Parcelforce) around nine or ten days later. No problems with customs, no import duties to pay. Result!
I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Ruby or to buy from her again.
The watch
When I opened the package I was very impressed with what I found. What a gem of a watch! Really bright and clean-looking, with nice delicate markings. For first impressions it probably surpassed the ten or so genuine (affordable) watches I’ve owned over the years. It definitely exceeded my expectations – I didn’t realise a rep could look this good!
Needless to say, I wasted no time in adjusting the bracelet and getting it on my wrist! (I followed this excellent guide and used a bracelet adjusting tool I’d already bought off eBay. For less than £3 it’s a great tool to have around so you can get your bracelet “just soâ€.)
Fingers crossed the watch will go the distance and the “Lemania†movement will prove as reliable as its reputation suggests it should, because I’d be happy to wear this watch for many years!
Detail accuracy
Regarding accuracy, well, as with all current hand-wind Speedy reps, the sub-dials are too far apart (although, strangely, I found the more I compared pictures of the genuine watch with the replicas, the more the sub-dials on the genuine watch looked wrong – like its eyes are too close together!). Also, and again as with all current hand-wind Speedy reps, the hand on the sub-dial at 6 o’clock mimics the main hour hand rather than working as part of the chronograph function. It’s so small, though, it doesn’t really bother me, and if you’re feeling brave you can always freeze the hand on the hour sub-dial) – just a shame it doesn’t leave the factory frozen.
Size and weight
I think there’s a lot of confusion about the size of Speedmaster reps, as they’re often referred to as being “too smallâ€. Yet in his second post in this thread on the rwg.cc forum, Mitton Mar says he has measured both his gen and his rep and found them to be identical in diameter. This is backed up by roflwaffle’s second post in this thread on the repgeek.com forum, where he say he has measured his rep with a digital calliper and found its measurements match those of the gen watch.
So why the confusion? I suspect it’s because rep dealers are only measuring the bezel (which is raised up from the rest of the case) and are therefore arriving at a measurement of around 39mm, whereas the measurement of 42mm quoted by Omega includes the extra bit of case behind the bezel.
There may be smaller reps out there, so if you’re planning to buy a different one it might be worth checking exactly which measurement the dealer is giving, but the rep I got from Ruby appears to match the measurements for a gen, i.e. 39mm across the bezel, 42mm across the case at its widest point, 43mm across including the crown.
The weight of this rep is 140g (although I can’t vouch for the absolute accuracy of my kitchen scales!). I believe a genuine pre-Moon Speedy is 135g.
Timekeeping and power reserve
It’s currently running around +6 seconds a day, which seems more than acceptable, especially as it’s no big deal to tweak the time every now and then when you wind the watch up.
After being fully wound the watch ran for over 49 hours.
Pictures
Why a Speedmaster Pro?
Well, I started looking for a new watch – not a replica, just an ordinary watch – a couple of months ago. I was prepared to spend up to around £200 on the right watch, but I struggled to find anything that took my fancy. Some came close, like the Kalashnikov Justice AK-2282 and a few Seikos (the SND721P1 and SND221P1, for example), but there was always something putting me off – a clumsy font, a cluttered dial, a busy bracelet, a slight lack of elegance.
Then I stumbled across a picture of a Speedmaster Pro, which reminded me of what a wonderful looking watch it is – classy and (no pun intended) timeless. Sadly, at £1675 a new one was out of the question. So too was the £700+ being asked for a secondhand one on eBay. But then I started to wonder if I could get a replica of it, and Google helped me find this place…
While doing my homework on replicas, I couldn’t help but be struck by how it seems that the upmarket brands get all the best designs. Some of them – Omega’s Seamasters and Planet Oceans spring immediately to mind – are not even particularly special designs as such, they just look right in terms of size, proportions, font, etc. Yet while such styling, or similar good looks, could easily be applied to a more affordable, more mainstream watch, that never seems to happen. Is it simply that the top names have the best designers, I wonder, or is it that the top brands are all part of groups that also own the more mainstream makes (e.g. the Swatch Group owns Omega, Swatch, Tissot and others) and therefore the best designs are kept for the more expensive watches, and the cheaper watches are held back to give the more expensive ones a visual edge? Hmm… Fortunately (and this won’t be news to you!), the other thing I discovered is that there are some damn fine-looking reps out there making these wonderful designs a bit more affordable! OK, they’re not all 100 percent accurate, but remove your spot-the-difference hat and many look very, very good in their own right.
The options
After considering a few other contenders I eventually decided it was still a Speedmaster I wanted, and many hours of searching and researching followed. It was worth it, though, as I discovered there are many subtly different Speedy reps on offer. I decided to go for one of the more expensive hand-wind versions, as the “Lemania†movement seems to have a good reputation, but even then there were still several versions to choose from. For the benefit of others who may be looking to buy a hand-wind Speedy now or in the future, I’ve posted my findings here.
Buying
I only wanted to buy from a reputable dealer, and I decided it was Ruby’s Speedmaster rep that I liked most, so I got in touch with her ([email protected]) and she was very helpful in confirming exactly which version she had available. In fact, her service was excellent: she always responded to my e-mails within 24 hours; she even, unrequested, e-mailed snapshots of the very watch she was sending me before she dispatched it. When I gave the thumbs-up, she shipped it via EMS and it was delivered to me in the UK (by Parcelforce) around nine or ten days later. No problems with customs, no import duties to pay. Result!
I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Ruby or to buy from her again.
The watch
When I opened the package I was very impressed with what I found. What a gem of a watch! Really bright and clean-looking, with nice delicate markings. For first impressions it probably surpassed the ten or so genuine (affordable) watches I’ve owned over the years. It definitely exceeded my expectations – I didn’t realise a rep could look this good!
Needless to say, I wasted no time in adjusting the bracelet and getting it on my wrist! (I followed this excellent guide and used a bracelet adjusting tool I’d already bought off eBay. For less than £3 it’s a great tool to have around so you can get your bracelet “just soâ€.)
Fingers crossed the watch will go the distance and the “Lemania†movement will prove as reliable as its reputation suggests it should, because I’d be happy to wear this watch for many years!
Detail accuracy
Regarding accuracy, well, as with all current hand-wind Speedy reps, the sub-dials are too far apart (although, strangely, I found the more I compared pictures of the genuine watch with the replicas, the more the sub-dials on the genuine watch looked wrong – like its eyes are too close together!). Also, and again as with all current hand-wind Speedy reps, the hand on the sub-dial at 6 o’clock mimics the main hour hand rather than working as part of the chronograph function. It’s so small, though, it doesn’t really bother me, and if you’re feeling brave you can always freeze the hand on the hour sub-dial) – just a shame it doesn’t leave the factory frozen.
Size and weight
I think there’s a lot of confusion about the size of Speedmaster reps, as they’re often referred to as being “too smallâ€. Yet in his second post in this thread on the rwg.cc forum, Mitton Mar says he has measured both his gen and his rep and found them to be identical in diameter. This is backed up by roflwaffle’s second post in this thread on the repgeek.com forum, where he say he has measured his rep with a digital calliper and found its measurements match those of the gen watch.
So why the confusion? I suspect it’s because rep dealers are only measuring the bezel (which is raised up from the rest of the case) and are therefore arriving at a measurement of around 39mm, whereas the measurement of 42mm quoted by Omega includes the extra bit of case behind the bezel.
There may be smaller reps out there, so if you’re planning to buy a different one it might be worth checking exactly which measurement the dealer is giving, but the rep I got from Ruby appears to match the measurements for a gen, i.e. 39mm across the bezel, 42mm across the case at its widest point, 43mm across including the crown.
The weight of this rep is 140g (although I can’t vouch for the absolute accuracy of my kitchen scales!). I believe a genuine pre-Moon Speedy is 135g.
Timekeeping and power reserve
It’s currently running around +6 seconds a day, which seems more than acceptable, especially as it’s no big deal to tweak the time every now and then when you wind the watch up.
After being fully wound the watch ran for over 49 hours.
Pictures
