Feature: Moonwatch vs MoonSwatch
Since the MoonSwatch first came out, the big question has been, does it tread on the toes of its bigger brother, the original Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch? Not that its $250 price comes anywhere near close to competing with the Speedmaster’s thirty times larger entry point of $7,600—more, has it tarnished the Moonwatch’s shine? Does the little plastic Swatch make the Omega seem overpriced and over-polished, or can the two coexist peacefully? That’s what I’m here to find out, and I was kind of surprised by the outcome.
History
Compared to the 1957 Speedmaster’s illustrious history, the MoonSwatch is very much a damp squib. At best it’s a low-quality knock-off, at worst it’s a cynical marketing ploy to leverage cash from the hypebeast sneaker collectors who don’t have enough cash for a full fat Speedmaster.
The Speedmaster itself came to be before a wristwatch’s sole existence was to decorate an otherwise bare wrist. When NASA said they needed a chronograph for its astronauts, it wasn’t for a branded sponsorship deal, it was so important mission parameters could be executed without leaving a pile of corpses on the moon. The Moonwatch is credited for aiding several mission critical decisions during the Apollo missions, including, of course, the potentially fateful burn of the Apollo 13 rockets that would return them home.
It's a rhetoric we’ve heard so many times under the gloss of relentless advertising that I think it’s lost some its raw incredibility. Imagine it from the other side, as Captain Jack Swigert. You do this wrong, and you and your crewmates are dead. The precision was so razor-thin, in fact, that the 13.8 second burn required was actually a correction for an earlier 4 minute and 20 seconds burn. If that Moonwatch was duff, they’d still be floating up there now.
The MoonSwatch’s greatest claim to fame, on the other hand, is causing fights outside Swatch stores and staining people’s wrists blue. Not quite so glamorous. And slapping on a gold plated chronograph seconds hand doesn’t really change that.
Nevertheless, it still stands out on the timeline of things for a reason that had people scratching their heads in confusion. You have to understand that these hard luxury manufacturers are incredibly protective of their brands. Of course they’d be; that’s all they have to trade on. NASA aren’t on the phone to Omega anymore, and so if the watchmaker loses credibility, it loses sales too.
Put it this way: groups like Swatch will actively block the display of lower, mid and upper tier brands together. So you won’t see Blancpain and Tissot in the same window. And yet there we were with the legacy of the Moonwatch encapsulated in a cheap, plastic watch. So you could say it had its own defining industry moment, just like the original Speedmaster—but one that left an altogether different taste in people’s mouths.
Quality
For hundreds of years, Omega has traded on its quality. When Rolex came a-knocking in the early 20th century, Omega bit back with superior engineering and finish, and still does today. Okay, so we can’t go this far without mentioning that the Speedmaster’s hand-wound chronograph has gone through various stages of devolution as a cost-saving measure, including the intermittent introduction of a plastic component where metal was once used, but still, by today’s standards, it can continue to hold its head high as one of the best.
The pricier sapphire crystal version of the Moonwatch with the transparent case back may be pushing on for $10,000 these days, but still it keeps very pleasant company with many other watches that cost an awful lot more. Recent updates have improved its usability, with better winding, a slicker bracelet and other trick movement features like the Co-Axial escapement keeping it very competitive.
And of course it’s a beauty both front and back. With the tweaks made by NASA to the original 1957 design, the Moonwatch has become a poster child for the watch collecting community. It’s one of the very few to bridge through to normal, sane people and still elicit a reaction. It’s a watch that can be worn every day for the rest of your life and not leave you feeling short changed. And if you get a chance to view the calibre 3861 through the back—well, it’s hard to feel miserable after looking at that.
It's often said that with expensive things comes the law of diminishing returns, where the increase in price doesn’t quite yield the improvement expected. In the case of the MoonSwatch, a thirty times price differential feels almost too close. With the MoonSwatch feeling hot off an unbranded Aliexpress 3D printer, that the Moonwatch can exist for thirty times the price seems almost incredible.
The MoonSwatch really is a very badly made watch. It scratches if you talk too loudly. It takes magnification like a slug takes salt: badly, and with great anguish. Every part of it feels primed to drop off at any moment. It’s like a clown car, but somehow even more sad. And that’s not even the worst part. The strap is so bad that even landfill would reject it. I’ve seen better material in an Amy Schumer stand-up.
Accessibility
The thing about luxury these days is that it’s very exclusive. You couldn’t just walk into an Omega boutique right now and choose yourself out a nice new Speedmaster. Except, you can, because not only are they not waiting list fodder, they’re also readily available. Imagine that, being able to buy a luxury item without having to wait and grovel, and having the staff being grateful to you instead of the other way around.
Where things get a bit crazy is that the MoonSwatch was one of those watches you have to wait and grovel for. Or, if you didn’t want to lower yourself to such things, one you could pay an enormous premium for. I’m talking used Omega Speedmaster premium. Can you imagine actually choosing a MoonSwatch over the original for the same price?
So when the massive popularity of the MoonSwatch created a hole in the supply and demand chain, it felt a bit like a rift in the spacetime continuum had opened. Thanks to Covid, it wasn’t the weirdest thing to happen in recent years, but it was still pretty damn weird.
Things have cooled off a bit now and supply of the MoonSwatch is becoming more attainable, but there are still a few locations and models that are proving tricky to get. I suppose there are some Moonwatches that are hard to procure as well, like the Snoopy Speedmaster, but generally speaking, the standard items are out there waiting to be bought.
Perception
All that’s very well and good, but let’s be real for a moment. These two watches aren’t aimed at the same people. One’s the price of a Nintendo Switch and the other’s as much as a first-class transatlantic ticket. The owners of these two things will likely never meet.
Except, that’s not quite true, because the president of the Swatch group has very keenly expressed that the MoonSwatch is aiming to drive sales of the Moonwatch up and not down. Talk was that cheapening the Moonwatch brand would damage the much more expensive watch’s credibility, and a few years on, with both in hand, it’s now time to answer that.
I’ve owned both separately and I’ve now experienced both together, and the reality is that, despite looking very similar and sounding very similar, they are two entirely different things. Basically, you can’t call a horse an elephant and expect it to stick. I don’t think there are many MoonSwatch owners protesting too much that it is officially a Speedmaster, but even if there were, no one would pay any attention to them.
Does the MoonSwatch, therefore, reduce the allure of the real Speedmaster? It would be a lie to say it doesn’t pop into my mind when I think about the old, faithful original. The name has been sullied a little bit, and even if the MoonSwatch gets discontinued, it will never be blemish free again. We can’t unsee the MoonSwatch.
But we’re talking parts per million here. What really works in the Moonwatch’s favour is the everything else about it. The incredible history, stunning build quality, beautiful looks and entrancing movement. I’ll tell you what experiencing the MoonSwatch and the Moonwatch together is like. The Moonwatch is Tom Hanks, blemish-free and pure, a national treasure that will never be replaced. The MoonSwatch is like learning that his son is an utter—
What do you think of the Moonwatch versus the MoonSwatch now the dust has settled? Do you own one or the other or both?
