The Victors

they all have great stories and history as to why they were invented and some take so much skill to include that I have tremendous admiration for the watchmakers that can do it. The minute repeater, for example, was invented for an early period of time before artificial light, when having a watch that could chime out the time at the push of a button or slide of a lever. The deep sea thing was a bit of a departure. That all just started because of Rolex adds about being so tough they can descend to absurd depths. That led others like Omega to make deep sea watches and none of the deep sea watches are actually wearable as they are so thick it is ridiculous. Regular divers are great though, even if most will never take them deeper than a swimming pool (and some won't even take them in the shower).

Of course, too much waterproof is preferable for many purposes than too little. During the space race, the first American to wear a wristwatch in space was Scott Carpenter in 1962. He had contract as a brand ambassador with Breitling and wore a specially designed Navitimer with a 24 hour dial (still sold as the Scott Carpenter Cosmonaut), which worked far better for missions in the capsule than a Heuer stop watch that John Glen wore on his mission but that stopwatch was too big and bulky in its specially designed leather casing for his wrist and it was determined they needed an actual wristwatch of reasonable size.

While the mission went well, Carpenter's hatch blew early upon landing in the ocean, and the capsule quickly filled with water. Navitimer's were designed for pilots and because of their bezel design, they are not water proof by any stretch of the imagination for anything other than maybe a shower (certainly not the pool). His watch drowned and NASA decided they need to have some sort of testing done to determine which watch would hold up best for space missions. So a NASA employee was sent to every jewelry store in Houston and bought multiple watches for what would be 8 separate tests (pressure, heat, water, dropping, exct). They weren't really expected to survive, it was just a question of which did the best. After the testing, it was the Omega Speedmaster that won.

When this became public, where NASA announced that Omega Speedmasters would be the official watch for NASA missions, there was a huge backlash from Rolex and from Bulova. Bulova believed that Americans should wear an American watch and a very vocal Texas Congressman went to bat for Bulova demanding a second round of testing. Rolex were shocked that Rolexes had not won.

So a second round of testing occurred. For the second round of testing, several manufacturers submitted new and improved versions of their chronographs but to no avail. The Speedy performed the best across the 8 tests and was again NASA's choice. Hence, Buzz Aldrin's Speedy was the first watch on the moon (Armstrong's was being used for another purpose in the capsule) and, hence, the moonwatch. After the mission, Buzz packed his watch and mailed it to the Smithsonian but it has never been seen again.

While the Speedy was the first, David Scott wore his Bulova Chronograph on the moon during Apollo 15. He had broken the crystal on his Speedy during the mission and had brought his personal Bulova, so he used the Bulova to keep track of oxygen consumption during his final mission on the moon. His Bulova sold for $1.55 million at an auction in 2015.

Since the Apollo mission, many other watches have been used on missions, but Speedy will always be the first on the moon and Omega spends tens of millions to ensure that no one ever forgets it. Later, when NASA began using Snoopy in promotions and ads, Omega issued the Snoopy versions of the Speedmasters of which there are many variations and people who spend serious money to collect them all.

For some reason, though James Bond always wore a Rolex in the books and wore a Rolex and a Breitling in early movies, it was Pierce Brosnan's Omega Seamaster with a blue wave dial and blue bezel that became most well known as the Bond watch. Later variations were worn by Daniel Craig with different colors and dial/bezel combo, but the blue on blue that Brosnan wore just established itself as the Bond watch and became even more popular because of it (it was already one of Omega's most popular models but the Bond association put it over the top. Of course, few under 50 are really going to remember it as the Bond watch.