ROBERT-JAN BROER
Is it really true that you sold your car to buy your first Speedmaster? What were the circumstances and why?
It was 1999 and I was a university student in The Hague. One evening, I was cycling through the city with some friends and suddenly I noticed this shop with a couple of watches in the window. There were two Speedmasters – a modern one from about 1994 and a vintage ref. 145.012-67. I gave the shop owner a call and asked about the prices. I decided to go for it, but needed some funds. Being a student, I didn’t have much money, but I did have a car – a Peugeot 205 GTI that I truly had little use for so, I sold it. I actually wanted the modern Speedmaster, but the vintage model with Calibre 321 movement was cheaper – that’s hard to imagine today, right? I knew the movement was rare and that it was perhaps best not to wear the watch to clubs and bars.
How did you become obsessed with the Speedmaster?
My interest in mechanical watches sparked somewhere in the mid-1990s and, at some point, I found myself looking at the Speedmaster. The moon story and the design attracted me. I spent more time studying watches than I spent in university. There wasn’t much out there, but my real obsession started by participating in Omega forums on TimeZone and WatchUseek, visiting watch fairs and talking to other collectors like the late, legendary Chuck Maddox.
I bought that Speedmaster Calibre 321 in October 1999 and, from that moment on, my life changed – dramatic but true. It was not only the start of a watch collection, it was also the start of a career and a different life.
How and why did Speedy Tuesday start and how did you start working officially with Omega on it?
While on holiday in Cannes, in 2012, I brought my Speedmaster Professional and took a wrist shot of it. I published it on Facebook and wrote: “It is Speedy Tuesday.” Not long after I realised that this could be a neat working title for Speedmaster articles on Fratello, a website I started in 2004 while bored at work. I thought it might be a good idea
