Omega Speedmaster 'Silver Snoopy Award' 50th Anniversary

Fourteen seconds in April 1970

Apollo 13 launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, bound for the Fra Mauro highlands with Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise aboard. It was meant to be the third Moon landing. Two days out, an oxygen tank in the service module exploded, recorded at 03:06 UTC on April 14 (10:06 p.m. on April 13, Eastern time), and the landing was abandoned. The mission's only goal became getting three men home.

With the spacecraft powered down to save energy, the crew had to time a critical course-correction burn of the lunar module's engine by hand. Omega's account is that the burn lasted exactly 14 seconds and was timed on a Speedmaster. The crew splashed down safely in the South Pacific on April 17, 1970, about a mile from the intended recovery point and three and a half nautical miles from the recovery ship Iwo Jima.

NASA later called the flight 'a successful failure.' In recognition of the Speedmaster's part in it, Omega received the Silver Snoopy Award in 1970. Omega says it received the prize seven months after the rescue, and the anniversary watch was announced on October 5, 2020, the date given for the original presentation fifty years earlier.

Why a beagle

Snoopy's link to the space program began with Apollo 10, the dress rehearsal for the first landing. That mission's command module was called 'Charlie Brown' and its lunar module 'Snoopy,' because its job was to snoop around for landing sites. By 1969 Charles Schulz's 'Peanuts' strip was a cultural phenomenon, and Snoopy, in his imaginary feud with the Red Baron, was its breakout star.

NASA created the Silver Snoopy Award in 1968. The idea came from Al Chop, director of public affairs at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center), who wanted a symbol for flight safety as recognizable as the Forest Service's Smokey Bear. The award is given personally by astronauts, to NASA employees and contractors, 'for professionalism, dedication and outstanding support that greatly enhanced space flight safety and mission success.'

Recipients receive a sterling silver Snoopy lapel pin that has flown on a NASA mission, a letter naming that mission and a signed, framed certificate. Awards are limited to no more than 1 percent of eligible people, and by January 2016 almost fifteen thousand had been given. Accounts differ on who handed Omega its award: one published history captions the award as presented by the Apollo 13 crew, while Omega's own page shows astronaut Thomas Stafford presenting it.

Three Snoopys

Omega waited more than three decades to put the beagle on a watch. The first Snoopy Speedmaster, reference 3578.51, came in 2003: essentially a standard Moonwatch with a spacesuited Snoopy and the words 'Eyes On The Stars' in the 9 o'clock sub-dial and on the caseback. It was made in a run of 5,441 pieces. Buyers are warned that some examples began life as ordinary Speedmasters and were later fitted with Snoopy dials and casebacks.

The second, launched at the 2015 Basel fair as the Speedmaster 'Silver Snoopy Award,' was limited to 1,970 pieces for the year of the award. It had a white dial, a luminous Snoopy lying prone in the sub-dial with a thought bubble reading 'Failure is not an option!' from the 1995 film Apollo 13, and the line 'What could you do in 14 seconds?' along the first 14 seconds of the track. Its casebacks were made by hand, and deliveries were slow. One sold at auction in September 2019 for a $23,500 hammer price against a high estimate of $7,000.

The 2020 watch broke the pattern. It is not numbered and not limited, a decision that surprised collectors. Omega told reviewers it intended to keep the model in its catalog beyond the anniversary year.

How to recognize one

The 42 mm steel case follows the Speedmaster's fourth-generation shape, the one worn on the Moon. The dial is silver, laser-engraved Ag925, with blue PVD angled hour markers and hands and three blue sub-dials. At 9 o'clock Snoopy appears as an embossed silver medallion in his spacesuit, drawn in the style of the award pin, with '50th Anniversary' above him. The blue ceramic bezel carries a white enamel tachymeter scale with the 'dot over ninety' that Speedmaster collectors look for.

The caseback is the reason the watch exists. Under sapphire decorated by micro-structured metallization, the far side of the Moon fills the back. Snoopy rides in a white Command and Service Module mounted on what Omega calls a 'magic hand': when the chronograph starts, he emerges from behind the Moon, crosses the view and disappears again, retracing Apollo 13's loop. An Earth disc turns once a minute in step with the small seconds hand, and the phrase 'Eyes on the Stars' sits in the black sky. A NAIAD LOCK caseback keeps the engravings upright.

Inside is caliber 3861, the Master Chronometer update of the Moonwatch movement: manual winding, 21,600 vibrations per hour, 26 jewels, a 50-hour power reserve and resistance to magnetic fields above 15,000 gauss. Omega says it took four years to develop a version that passed Master Chronometer testing while keeping the dimensions of the earlier caliber 1861. The watch comes on a blue nylon fabric strap whose lining is embossed with Apollo 13's trajectory, and it is water resistant to 50 meters.

The animation adds little bulk. Omega lists the case at 14.47 mm thick, against 14.26 mm for a standard Speedmaster and 14.8 mm for the 2015 Silver Snoopy as measured by one reviewer.

Unlimited, and still scarce

The U.S. price at launch was $9,600, the same figure as the Swiss price in francs. Orders opened with the announcement, and deliveries were scheduled to begin in November 2020.

Being unlimited did not keep the watch cheap on the secondary market. At an online sale in Geneva on November 15, 2022, one with 2022 papers brought CHF 25,200 against an estimate of CHF 10,000 to 15,000. On June 6, 2023, in New York, an example with a warranty card dated April 9, 2021, sold for $21,420 against an estimate of $18,000 to $28,000. In Hong Kong on October 27, 2024, another brought HKD 126,000.

By 2026 Omega's U.S. website listed the watch at $11,900, marked as 'exclusive access' and unavailable in California, Maine and Vermont.

The numbers

Reference

310.32.42.50.02.001

Caliber

Omega 3861, manual-winding Co-Axial Master Chronometer chronograph, 26 jewels, 21,600 vph, 50-hour power reserve, magnetic resistance above 15,000 gauss

Case

42 mm stainless steel, 14.47 mm thick, 47.5 mm lug to lug, 20 mm lugs

Bezel

Blue ceramic (ZrO2) with white enamel tachymeter scale

Water resistance

50 m / 165 ft

Production years

2020 to present (still listed by Omega in 2026)

Production numbers

Not limited and not published by Omega

Timeline

1. 1968

   NASA establishes the Silver Snoopy Award, conceived by public affairs director Al Chop.

2. 1969

   Apollo 10 flies with a lunar module called 'Snoopy' and a command module called 'Charlie Brown.'

3. Apr 11, 1970

   Apollo 13 launches from Kennedy Space Center.

4. Apr 14, 1970

   An oxygen tank explodes in the service module at 03:06 UTC; the landing is abandoned.

5. Apr 17, 1970

   The crew splashes down safely in the South Pacific after a hand-timed 14-second course-correction burn.

6. Oct 5, 1970

   Omega receives the Silver Snoopy Award.

7. 2003

   Omega releases the first Snoopy Speedmaster, reference 3578.51, in a run of 5,441 pieces.

8. 2015

   The Speedmaster 'Silver Snoopy Award,' limited to 1,970 pieces, launches at the Basel fair.

9. Sep 2019

   A 2015 Silver Snoopy sells at auction for a $23,500 hammer price, more than three times its high estimate.

10. Apr 13, 2020

    The 50th anniversary of the Apollo 13 accident.

11. Oct 5, 2020

    Omega announces the non-limited Speedmaster 'Silver Snoopy Award' 50th Anniversary, ref. 310.32.42.50.02.001, at $9,600.

12. Nov 2020

    Omega says first deliveries will begin.

13. Nov 15, 2022

    An example sells online in Geneva for CHF 25,200.

14. Jun 6, 2023

    An example sells at auction in New York for $21,420.

15. Oct 27, 2024

    An example sells at auction in Hong Kong for HKD 126,000.

16. 2026

    Omega's U.S. site lists the watch at $11,900.

The world in 1970

• Apr 11, 1970

  Apollo 13 lifts off for the Moon; it becomes NASA's 'successful failure' six days later.

• Apr 2020

  The 50th anniversary of Apollo 13 falls during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• May 30, 2020

  The first crewed SpaceX Dragon 2 launches from Cape Canaveral, the first crewed spacecraft to leave U.S. soil since the Space Shuttle was retired.

• Oct 5, 2020

  Confirmed COVID-19 cases pass 35 million worldwide on the day the watch is announced.

• Nov 2020

  Joe Biden's election as the 46th U.S. president is called after the November 3 vote.

• Nov 18, 2020

  Pfizer and BioNTech complete trials of their COVID-19 vaccine, reporting 95 percent effectiveness.

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 'Silver Snoopy Award' 50th Anniversary is number 65 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 (52 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The Silver Snoopy pin itself has flown in space: each award pin is carried on a NASA mission before it is presented.
• An individual can receive the Silver Snoopy only once, and awards are capped at 1 percent of eligible people.
• The Earth disc on the caseback turns once a minute, synchronized with the watch's small seconds hand.
• Apollo 10's lunar module was named 'Snoopy' because its job was to snoop around for Apollo 11's landing site.
• This is the first Snoopy Speedmaster that is not a limited edition; the 2003 run was 5,441 pieces and the 2015 run 1,970.
• The 2015 edition's number, 1,970, was chosen for the year Omega received the award.