The strange and fun world of wristwatch nicknames

Do you know your 'Pepsi' from 'Arnie'? Your 'Batman' from 'Turtle'? Enter the world of watch nicknames

- Bibek Bhattacharya [e-mail]

Being a watch aficionado is all well, but there is one small quirk that separates the enthusiast from the watch nerd, and that is the love for nicknames. I have loved to wear watches all my life, but a few years ago, when I got in the weeds with watch fandom, I was stunned to realise that people love giving nicknames to watches, especially specific models.

Some of them are quite straightforward, like shortening the Omega Speedmaster to "Speedy", but then again, there are specific Speedies with different nicknames, like the Ed White. That one is a specific reference of the Speedmaster (ref. 105.003) that was worn by the US astronaut Ed White during a spacewalk in 1964 with NASA's Gemini IV mission. In fact, whenever an "Ed White" reference comes up for sale or auction, this association with a famous astronaut sends prices soaring.

To stay with the Speedmaster—and to make the point that there is no end to the rabbit hole of nicknames—the most famous nickname of the lot has to be the "Moonwatch". In fact, Omega's marquee Speedmaster line is actually titled that. The reason for that is simple—it is the direct descendent of the Speedy reference that was worn by the astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 that put the first men on the moon.