Back in July of this year, Mark Bernardo, Senior Editor of WatchTime, accurately described the new Omega Speedmaster Speedy Tuesday ?Ultraman? as a ?Monster Launch,? which was nothing short of spot on. The new watch, like many of the bigger collaborative releases as of late, caught much of the market by surprise. It represented a significant collector?s item as the second watch in the cooperative Speedy Tuesday line of Speedmasters produced with online magazine Fratellowatches.com, and in turn it sold all 2,012 pieces in under two hours.
 
All this hubbub has brought renewed attention to the original piece the new collaborative addition is based upon, the Speedmaster Ref. 145.012-67. According to Robert-Jan Broer, founder of Fratellowatches and originator of the #SpeedyTuesday trend that brought about this watch, the original piece was a short run of adjusted Moonwatches? notable for their central orange chronograph hand? produced in 1968 and popularized in the ?Return of Ultraman? Japanese television series shown from 1971 to 1971 (vintage model pictured above, via Fratello). Although estimates are rough, it seems Omega produced only about 50 of these watches ? either for the Japanese market or directly for use in the TV series. Thus, between the rarity of the original and the intriguing story attached to it, the ?Ultraman? was ripe for a return on one fateful Speedy Tuesday afternoon.
The new model, officially dubbed the Speedy Tuesday Speedmaster Limited Edition 42mm ?...