After the successful Moon landing mission in July of 1969, all of the then-active astronauts were invited to a banquet dinner in Houston, Texas on November 25th of the same year. During this dinner, the President, Vice President, and astronauts were each offered a gold commemorative AAA replica Omega Speedmaster Professional watch with reference BA145.022-69.
The first 18K gold Fake Omega Speedmaster Professional
In short, the luxury replica Omega Speedmaster Professional BA145.022-69 is a full-gold version of the steel Moonwatch 145.022. It features an 18K gold case with the same design cues and dimensions as the regular steel Speedmaster Professional. The gold bezel has a burgundy red aluminum inlay with the famous “dot over ninety”. One of the things that makes this Swiss made fake Omega BA145.022-69 reference so special is, of course, the solid gold dial. This is indicated by the “OM” next to “Swiss Made”, which means Or Massif, or “solid gold.” The hour markers are made of onyx, have two facets each, and are set in gold frames. The hands are black with gold centers and give wonderful contrast to the solid gold dial.
In total, best 1:1 replica Omega produced 1014 of these gold Speedmaster watches. Besides the ones that went to astronauts (34 allocations are known) and other VIPs of that time, they were made available for the market with a slightly different engraved case back. You can find an in-depth article on the gold top super clone Omega Speedmaster Professional “Tribute to Astronauts” watch on this page. The article includes an overview of all the known allocations of this watch.
Michael Collins’s Speedmaster No.19
For the Apollo 11 crew, Neil Armstrong received number 17, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin has number 21, and Michael Collins received number 19. And it is this number 19 that will be up for auction on Wednesday, June 1st, 2022. Auction house Heritage Auctions was able to secure this gold Omega Speedmaster replica for sale that belonged to one of three Apollo 11 astronauts.
It’s hardly necessary to get provenance with this watch, as it has his name and the number 19 engraved. It does, however, come with a small note stating: “This high quality fake Omega watch was given to me shortly after the flight of Apollo XI, and has been in my personal possession ever since. I wore it seldom if ever, but I have wound it every decade or so, and I believe it is in perfect operating condition. Michael Collins, Apollo XI CMP.”
