‘Speedymoon’ 345.0809 Omega Speedmaster Moonphase

Earlier this week, friend of Hairspring Robert-Jan Broer of Fratello wrote a fantastic piece on the Speedmaster Moonphase and all its iterations, which I’ve always felt is one of the most attractive flavors of Speedmaster. Something about the additional layer of vertical symmetry and light sprinkling of complication elevates the watch for me. Where it can often feel ridiculous to see elevated takes on sport watches, like a SARU Sub or gem set Ingenieur (they exist), this one is just right in level of restraint. And it has arguably never been bettered since introduction in the 345.0809, which is an even more complicated reference than you might think, with a ton of inter-reference variation.

First, we should note this is not a common reference and it sold relatively slowly in period, just 1300 examples made. But it goes so much deeper. The moonphase discs changed quite a lot from start to end of production. The earliest featured a hand painted face on the moon, smiling. Omega quickly realized this was a bit too labor intensive and replaced the smiling moon with solid gold discs. It is thought that around 25 smiling moon 345.0809s exist and those sell for nearly double what you’re looking at here (a standard production). It’s the one Speedmaster where the glass should not be Omega-signed (really). Then there is a similar reference made for the German market known as the Smoothline in the Teutonic case ref. 345.0810 in smaller numbers. All these iterations and many others have been chronicled by @t_solo_t on Instagram, a database at omegaspeedymoon.com, truly exceptional work.

Like the Holy Grail Speedmaster, which with this shares a bezel style, it’s territory fraught with service parts and assembled watches. Best really to do your homework on these. But when you do, what a watch. These were all Spielmann cases, with tiny pushers on the left hand side. What I love most, though, is that it’s just a slight twist on the expected. It’s a Speedmaster at a glance, but anything more and you realize that no, this is complicated. Very complicated, as it turns out.

This example checks out as far as I can tell and has a great worn but not abused aesthetic. The dial appears to be correct and without damage. It comes on a 1447 bracelet with extract of archive noting original sale in Italy from a well-regarded Italian retailer.