The Seiko Pogue
Specifications
- Brand: Seiko
- Model Reference: "Aussie Pogue" 6139-6002
- Case:
- Diameter: 41mm
- Thickness: 14mm
- Lug-to-Lug: 46mm
- Lug Width: 19mm
- Case Material: Stainless Steel
- Crystal Material: Mineral
- Water Resistance: 70m
- Crown: Push-Pull with pusher for quickset day and date
- Movement
- Movement Reference: Seiko 6139
- Jewels: 17
- Rate: 21,600vph
- Winding: Automatic-only, no Hand Winding
- Hacking: No
- Additional Features:
- Quickset Day and Date, operated by pushing down on the crown
- 30 minute chronograph
- Internal rotating bezel operated by crown
- Dial
- Colour: Sunburst Yellow
- Indicies: Applied, Tritium Lume
Description
Something that can be found in most images of watch collections on the internet is the "Space Watch", a watch that is famously associated with going to space. Most of the time this watch is an Omega Speedmaster which Omega will simply not stop yelling about it being the first on the moon. To be honest if I made something that went to the moon I probably wouldn't stop yelling about it either. Still, being a contrarian and, perhaps far more to the point, not having a spare six and a half grand I decided to go with a different pick to fill the almost obligatory "space watch" spot in my collection.
This is a Seiko 6139-6002, it's a well-proportioned, well-featured, and very reasonably priced watch from the early '70s. That in itself would get it a respectable cult following among watch collectors, but this has an interesting claim to fame that also earned it its nickname.
Spaaace
In 1973, Colonel William Pogue was the pilot for the Skylab 4 mission (notable for the... unplanned communications break that could be construed as the astronauts going on strike because of high workload despite everyone involved denying that being the case) and decided, as he had completed training for the mission wearing his personal 6139-6002, he would bring it along with him in addition to his NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster.
This did, quite amusingly, lead to a bit of a whoopsie further on. In 1985 Reinhard Furrer was a payload specialist on the Spacelab D-1 mission. At this point in time it wasn't officially known that an automatic winding mechanism would operate correctly in microgravity, while the rotor may spin and provide energy from inertia alone it wasn't clear that it could provide enough without the help of gravity. And so, with great publicity, Furrer wore a Sinn 142 in order to test it out, and this resulted in the Sinn 142 being known as the first automatic watch to be worn in space. Right up until someone was going through old photos and noticed that Pogue had one on 11 years earlier that he didn't bother to tell anyone about.
"Aussie"
This particular Seiko Pogue is a less common variant known as the "Aussie". It's from a batch sold on the Australian market that had yellow sunburst dials, black internal bezel inserts, and were sold on Stelux manufactured bracelets. It's not entirely clear why this batch was a little bit different from the rest of the models but it does add another neat little story to it.
