Last yr, after sparking the most important hype frenzy the watch market has seen with the discharge of the MoonSwatch, a bioplastic Swatch model of Omega’s legendary Speedmaster Moonwatch, Swatch president Nick Hayek Jr. stated that “positive provocation” was a key a part of the model’s mission. Which maybe explains the primary follow-up to the unique 11-strong assortment of MoonSwatches, introduced as we speak however trailed beforehand (as was the unique launch) with cryptic social media messaging. 

Over the weekend, the Swatch Instagram account introduced the approaching arrival of the Mission to Moonshine Gold.” Each MoonSwatch is called after a unique planet, with the “Mission to…” prefix (Mission to Mars, Mission to Neptune, and so on.), whereas Moonshine Gold is Omega’s proprietary hardened gold alloy, utilized in a few of its watches, together with some sought-after all-gold Speedmaster models. 

That provoked a fury of speculation over what sort of gold-inspired—or certainly all-gold—MoonSwatch was about to drop. This morning the reply got here: an equivalent model of the grey Mission to the Moon mannequin (the closest to the traditional Speedmaster), however with the chronograph seconds-hand alone given a coating in Moonshine gold (for a retail value of £250 ($298), towards £228 ($272) for the common model).

Hayek’s willingness to confound these joyful to drink within the hype that his personal model creates doesn’t finish with a launch so apparently underwhelming (if the feedback on Instagram are something to go by). The chief attribute of the MoonSwatch story, since a launch that noticed Swatch outlets around the globe swamped by enormous crowds of patrons and flippers, has been shortage, with Swatch’s boutiques massively undersupplied and the watches unavailable on-line. 

This has by now calmed to a fantastic extent: Swatch has reported anticipated gross sales of 1.5 million MoonSwatches over the yr since launch, whereas resale costs have fallen closely. On the watch market Chrono24, the Mission to the Moon now lists at across the £350 ($417) mark, a wholesome return on a £228 ($272) product by any stretch, however down from greater than £800 ($953) final spring.

Perhaps the actual mission of the Mission to Moonshine is to fireside up the shortage challenge once more. It is just obtainable as we speak, and solely in 4 areas worldwide: in Tokyo, the place it went on sale at 9:30 JST, and in Milan, Zurich, and London—not the US. All areas, says Swatch, have a thematic hyperlink to gold: the City of London (the place the watch goes on sale at 6:30 pm in a pop-up on the Royal Exchange, the historic monetary buying and selling middle) is the place gold costs are set, as an illustration, whereas Zurich’s Paradeplatz is the central hub of town’s banking district.