Omega Speedmaster 'Ed White' Ref. 105.003

The last of the straight lugs

Omega introduced the Speedmaster in 1957 as a sport and racing chronograph, not a space watch. The first reference, CK 2915, ran on the caliber 321, a column-wheel chronograph movement developed in 1946 by Albert Piguet of Lemania, a movement maker owned by Omega's parent group. The CK 2998 followed in 1959, then the ST 105.002 in 1963.

Less than a year after the 105.002, Omega released the ST 105.003. It kept the straight-sided case of the earlier models but swapped their alpha hands for plain baton hands, giving the dial the clean, high-contrast look that the Speedmaster has worn ever since. It was the last Speedmaster without crown guards: its successors, the 105.012 and 145.012, added an asymmetrical case to shield the crown and pushers, along with the word "Professional" on the dial.

The casebacks of the 105.003 fall into three date groups, -63, -64 and -65, but the watches kept leaving the factory long after. One collector reference cites confirmed deliveries as late as 1969, while a 2013 account written after a visit to the Omega museum says production ran to 1966 and dealers were still receiving them in 1967. One example sold at auction in 2021 carried an Omega archive certificate recording its delivery in Switzerland on September 29, 1966.

Because it was made over a long stretch, and by one specialist's account in larger numbers than all the earlier straight-lug references put together, the 105.003 is the most plentiful vintage Speedmaster of its generation. That is also why it was long the most affordable of the so-called pre-Professional models.

Chosen by NASA

NASA did not pick the Speedmaster off a jeweler's counter, whatever the popular story says. James Ragan, a former NASA engineer responsible for Apollo flight-hardware testing, called the tale of watches bought anonymously in a Houston shop "a complete invention"; instead, bids were solicited from several brands. Three contenders reached testing: Rolex, Longines-Wittnauer and Omega.

The tests were brutal. The watches spent 48 hours at 160°F followed by 30 minutes at 200°F, four hours at 0°F, fifteen cycles of heating and cooling in near-vacuum, 250 hours at 95 percent humidity, 48 hours in pure oxygen, six 40 g shocks, acceleration to 7.25 g, vibration from 5 to 2,000 Hz and 30 minutes of 130-decibel noise. The evaluation ended in March 1965 with the Speedmaster selected, having stayed largely within five seconds a day.

The model that passed was the 105.003. According to research published with Omega's help, NASA received three watches for testing, and after qualification Omega sent a further batch of 24 Speedmaster 105.003s. NASA later ordered the 105.012 and 145.012, but the 105.003 stayed in service alongside them through the end of the Apollo missions.

Gus Grissom and John Young wore the first officially qualified Speedmasters on Gemini 3 on March 23, 1965, and Speedmasters were issued to every Gemini crew until the program ended in 1966. Omega's own account of reviving the caliber 321 notes that the watch Gene Cernan wore on the Moon during Apollo 17 in 1972, now at the Omega Museum in Bienne, was also a 105.003.

Twenty-three minutes outside

Gemini IV lifted off from Cape Kennedy on June 3, 1965, with James McDivitt in command and Ed White as pilot. It was the first flight run from the new Mission Control Center in Houston, and its launch was carried live to audiences in 12 European countries by the Early Bird satellite. The Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov had made the first spacewalk in March, and NASA had moved its own spacewalk forward to show it was catching up; agency leadership approved the plan only on May 25.

On the third orbit the crew depressurized the cabin. Over Hawaii, White pulled the hatch handle and the latches would not move; McDivitt, who had seen the same fault in a ground test, helped him free it. Tethered to the craft, White pushed off with a hand-held maneuvering unit that fired pressurized oxygen, drifted about 15 feet out and maneuvered around the spacecraft while McDivitt photographed him. He stayed out about 23 minutes, nearly 10 minutes longer than planned, and when ordered back in he called it "the saddest moment of my life."

In those photographs White wears not one but two Speedmasters on his left arm, strapped over the sleeve of his G4C suit on long nylon straps closed with Velcro. Omega has confirmed that both were 105.003-63s. A former NASA engineer explained that astronauts tracked both mission time and Houston time, one on each watch. McDivitt also wore two.

Omega has long said it learned of the Speedmaster's role only when it saw a photograph of the spacewalk. Ordering forms sent in 1964 by NASA's Gemini procurement office to Omega's American agents suggest that story may be exaggerated. Either way, the photographs ran in Omega advertising from 1965 to 1967 and fixed the link between the Speedmaster and space in the public mind.

Where the Gemini IV watches went

Ed White did not live to see the Moon landing. On January 27, 1967, during a launch-pad test for Apollo 1, fire swept the command module and killed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee. One of White's two 105.003-63s was on his wrist and was destroyed. It carried NASA's internal serial S/N 5 and the code CF5503 engraved on the side of the case, with SEB1210039-001 on the caseback.

The other, White's training watch, described by a former NASA engineer as one of the first Speedmasters delivered after the tests, was later sold by White's son to a collector in Japan. Command pilot McDivitt's 105.003-63, NASA S/N 4, is in the Smithsonian's collection; Frank Borman also used that same watch on Gemini VII. The Omega serial numbers of the Gemini IV watches are believed to fall in the 20,252,6xx range, but the last digits remain unknown.

Civilian examples carry their own stories. In October 2025 a 105.003-64 with a rare blue-toned bezel, serial 22082521, sold at auction for $49,156 including premium. Astronaut Wally Schirra had given it, after the Gemini 6A rendezvous mission of December 1965, to Dr. Joseph John Combs Jr., a medical director at McDonnell Aircraft who attached biomedical sensors to the Gemini astronauts.

In December 2021 a circa-1966 105.003-65 with an Omega archive certificate sold at auction in Hong Kong for HKD 812,500, reported as about $104,000, against an estimate of HKD 77,000 to 102,000. A leading collector reference calls that result an outlier, points to the flaking on its dial and leaves it out of its own price chart. The same reference describes most excellent examples selling between about $22,000 and $28,000 as of 2024, with rough ones selling for a fraction of that.

How to read a 105.003

The dial is the first check. A correct 105.003 dial is stepped, with an applied metal Omega logo, long hour indices, closely spaced "T SWISS MADE T" text at six o'clock and no "Professional" line. The hands are batons for the hours and minutes, painted sticks on the subdials and a spear-tipped chronograph seconds hand. The bezel is the black "BASE 500" tachymeter with the dot over 90.

The case has straight lugs 19 mm apart, rather than the 20 mm of later models, and a double-step caseback engraved "Speedmaster." Pushers measure 4.5 by 3.5 mm and the crown 7 mm. Inside, the caliber 321 should show the correct asymmetric clutch bridge. One specialist notes that some -64 cases have a flatter profile on the sides of the lugs, a detail collectors still debate.

Serial numbers track the caseback dates in one collector reference: roughly 2052 1xxx to 2052 6xxx for -63, 2052 7xxx to 2282 7xxx (and 2208 9xxx) for -64, and 2282 7xxx to 2544 6xxx for -65. The -64 is the scarcest of the three. Bezels that have faded toward blue turn up most often on this reference and change color dramatically under different light.

Condition drives value more than date. Repainted hands are common, and replacement parts are everywhere, so collectors judge the dial, bezel and case finish first and the date suffix second.

From laggard to icon

For years the 105.003 trailed the earlier CK 2915 and CK 2998 in collectors' eyes. A 2013 write-up called it perhaps the least popular of the pre-Professional models and put good examples between $4,500 and $8,500. By 2016 the same publication was reporting that the days of bargain Ed Whites were over.

Omega has since leaned on the watch's story. In 2019, more than 50 years after it made its last caliber 321 in 1968, Omega announced it was bringing the movement back. A small team worked for two years under the code name "Alaska 11" and used tomography to scan the 321 inside Gene Cernan's Apollo 17 Speedmaster, a 105.003.

The steel watch that followed, the Speedmaster Calibre 321 reference 311.30.40.30.01.001, is a modern take on the 105.003 at 39.7 mm, with a ceramic bezel and sapphire crystals, assembled start to finish by one watchmaker in a dedicated workshop. It retailed for $14,100 when it reached buyers in 2020, about twice the price of a standard Moonwatch at the time.

The original remains a tool watch with a remarkable record: the reference NASA qualified, the reference on the first American spacewalk, and a reference still on an astronaut's wrist during the last Apollo Moon landing.

The numbers

Reference

ST 105.003 (-63, -64, -65)

Caliber

Omega 321, manual wind, column wheel, 18,000 vph

Case

Stainless steel, straight lugs, about 39.5 mm (one auction record: 39.6 mm at the bezel), 19 mm lug width

Bezel

Black aluminum tachymeter to 500, dot over 90

Production years

From 1963; caseback dates 1963 to 1965; deliveries reported into 1967 or 1969

Production numbers

Not published; described as more numerous than all earlier straight-lug Speedmasters combined

NASA batch

3 watches for testing, then 24 more after qualification

Timeline

1. 1957

   Omega introduces the Speedmaster, reference CK 2915, powered by the caliber 321.

2. Oct 3, 1962

   Wally Schirra wears his personal CK 2998 on Mercury-Atlas 8, the first Speedmaster in space.

3. 1963

   The ST 105.002 appears; within a year the ST 105.003 follows with baton hands and straight lugs.

4. Mar 1965

   NASA's qualification tests end with the Speedmaster 105.003 selected for crewed missions.

5. Mar 23, 1965

   Grissom and Young wear the first officially qualified Speedmasters on Gemini 3.

6. Jun 3, 1965

   Ed White makes the first American spacewalk on Gemini IV, wearing two 105.003-63s.

7. Dec 15, 1965

   Gemini 6A launches; Wally Schirra later gives a 105.003-64 to a McDonnell medical director.

8. Sep 29, 1966

   A 105.003-65 is delivered in Switzerland, evidence of how long the reference kept shipping.

9. Jan 27, 1967

   Ed White dies in the Apollo 1 fire; one of his Gemini IV Speedmasters is destroyed.

10. 1968

    Omega makes its last caliber 321; the caliber 861 takes over the Speedmaster Professional.

11. 1972

    Gene Cernan wears a 105.003 on the Moon during Apollo 17.

12. 2019

    Omega announces the return of the caliber 321, reconstructed with help from a scan of Cernan's 105.003.

13. 2020

    The steel Speedmaster Calibre 321, ref. 311.30.40.30.01.001, reaches buyers at $14,100.

14. Dec 5, 2021

    A 105.003-65 sells at auction in Hong Kong for HKD 812,500, reported as about $104,000.

15. Oct 16, 2025

    Wally Schirra's gifted 105.003-64 with a blue-toned bezel sells at auction for $49,156.

The world in 1963

• Jun 1963

  The Soviet Vostok 5 sets a five-day spaceflight record that Gemini IV would approach but not break.

• Nov 28, 1964

  Mariner 4 launches toward Mars; it would return the first close-up pictures of another planet.

• Mar 18, 1965

  Alexei Leonov makes the first spacewalk, a 12-minute excursion from Voskhod 2.

• Mar 23, 1965

  Gemini 3 flies the first two-person American crew and is the last mission controlled from Florida.

• Jun 3, 1965

  Gemini IV's launch is shown live in 12 European nations via the Early Bird satellite; 1,100 journalists seek accreditation.

• Dec 15, 1965

  Gemini 6A, commanded by Wally Schirra, launches and soon achieves the first space rendezvous.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Omega Speedmaster 'Ed White' Ref. 105.003 is number 91 of 100 in the watches entries of the FLOAT 100. 54 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (50 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Ed White wore two Speedmasters on his spacewalk: one set to mission time and one to Houston time.
• One of White's Gemini IV watches burned in the Apollo 1 fire; the other was sold by his son to a collector in Japan.
• James McDivitt's Gemini IV Speedmaster, now at the Smithsonian, also flew with Frank Borman on Gemini VII.
• Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon, wore a 105.003, and Omega scanned its movement when it rebuilt the caliber 321 in 2019.
• Omega's secret caliber 321 revival was code-named "Alaska 11," echoing the code names of its 1960s and 1970s NASA designs.
• NASA's qualification tests included 48 hours in pure oxygen and 30 minutes of 130-decibel noise.
• White stayed outside nearly 10 minutes longer than planned and called coming back in "the saddest moment of my life."