Meteorite Monday Is A Thing: Otherworldly Meteorite-Dialed Watches From Omega, Rolex, Zodiac, And More

What do you see when you look up at the sky at night? Stars? The Moon? I see possible watch dials. Okay, not always, but I have to admit I have a soft spot for meteorite dials. The idea of having a wafer-thin slice of a rock that fell from the heavens on your wrist fascinates me, and its look is something else. Meteorite dials come in all shapes and sizes. This Meteorite Monday, I invite you on a short trip to discover a few of my favorite otherworldly meteorite-dialed watches.

Imagine soaring through space, crash-landing on a planet, and then being sliced up and put inside a watch. It happens. Poor meteorite. Lucky us. The accidental encounter between material from the heart of an asteroid or even an exploded planet can turn into something beautiful when that material ends up on the watch’s dial. No meteorite looks the same as another. They all differ in material and experienced different cosmic journeys that cooled them down and created exceptional metallic patterns.

Otherworldly meteorite-dialed watches from Rolex, for instance

This is not my favorite meteorite-dialed Rolex model (I’ll get to that later), but it deserves a mention. The white gold Daytona ref. 116519LN looks special and sporty simultaneously. The black ceramic bezel perfectly frames the dial from space, which shows a silvery color and an irregular line pattern. With a bit of imagination (which is what a meteorite dial sparks in my case), the black sub-dials look like little planets in space.

The meteorite dial consists of iron and nickel and shows the result of unique crystallization within the material. Proper skill is required to create a thinly sliced meteorite dial showing the triangular Widmanstätten patterns, also known as Thomson structures. This 40mm Daytona variant is now discontinued, but when it came out in 2021, its retail price was €32,400. You will struggle to find one now on Chrono24 for less than €80K.

A Moonwatch with parts from outer space

Another chronograph with plenty of meteorite to show for itself is the Omega Speedmaster Apollo-Soyuz 35th Anniversary. This Speedmaster Professional ref. 311.30.42.30.99.001 came out in 2010 in a limited run of 1,975 pieces. The dial is completely done in “space rock,” but it shows different shades.

The meteorite used for the three sub-dials is a lighter gray than the main dial, creating a spaced-out reverse-panda look that has no equal. The original price was €6,150. If you want one and have a search on Chrono24, you should be ready to pay more than twice that sum.

Unexpected meteorite dials

Rolex and Omega are not the only brands creating dials from rocks that fell on our planet. Many Haute Horlogerie brands, like Jaeger-LeCoultre and others, have used the material to create dials. But lately, brands operating in a slightly or even much lower price bracket have had a go at meteorite dials too. “Meteorite for the masses” is a bit of an exaggeration, but what Frederique Constant and Zodiac did brought an otherworldly dial within reach of a different audience.

The Frederique Constant Classic Tourbillon Meteorite Manufacture debuted last year to celebrate the brand’s 35th anniversary. The watch is limited to 35 pieces, features a 39mm platinum case, and underneath the meteorite dial beats an entirely hand-finished in-house FC-980 tourbillon movement that shows its whirling qualities through the opening at 6 o’clock. The price? A cool €42,995. So, no, it’s not exactly a price that justifies the term “meteorite for the masses.” A look at Chrono24 reveals that there’s just one for sale, but it will cost more than its original asking price if you live outside the US and have to pay import taxes.

A spaced-out diver from Zodiac

The Watches.com × Zodiac Super Sea Wolf Meteorite also features a dial with interstellar origins, and it does so very surprisingly. The Super Sea Wolf, a historically interesting diver’s watch, is already a surprising platform to use because its variants are much more affordable than any other watch in this article. The Zodiac Super Sea Wolf Meteorite is limited to 182 pieces. It comes with a dial showing a fragment of the Muonionalusta meteorite, which crashed down approximately 800,000 years ago in the Norrbotten region of Sweden. The dial also suits the “space gray” DLC-coated case and bracelet perfectly. The original price of this collaboration watch was US$1,795 when it came out and sold out very quickly.

While this collaboration watch is almost impossible to find nowadays, there’s another meteorite-dialed Zodiac that’s easier to spot. The reference ZO9292 is not a collaboration. This Zodiac Super Sea Wolf Meteorite version shows no orange on the dial or gray bezel. Three reasonably priced examples are currently available on Chrono24.

Meteorite love with Louis Moinet

Before I tell you about my favorite meteorite-dialed watch, I must mention an exclusive and independent Haute Horlogerie brand that is mad about meteorites. Well, it’s not the brand, per se, but its owner, Jean-Marie Schaller. The man is a veritable harvester of meteorites. There’s a plethora of watches in the Louis Moinet collection featuring space rocks. For example, check out the recent Starman Flying Tourbillon, which has a slice of the Gibeon meteorite for the main dial. This meteorite fragment is dyed blue to mimic the night sky. Then, at the top of the dial, there’s a small circle crafted from the nearly black Jbilet Winselwan meteorite. Fun fact about this meteorite: it contains amino acids, a basic building block of life. This price-on-request 47.4mm gold watch is impressive but not the one I want to highlight. That would be a record-breaking one.

The most meteorites in a watch

With the Cosmopolis, the small independent brand Louis Moinet set a world record. The 12 heavenly treasures on the dial of the Louis Moinet Cosmopolis mean that this watch received a Guinness World Records title for the “most meteorite inserts in a watch.” It’s also the only watch of its kind since it’s a unique piece. Placed in the center of the dial is the rarest piece of space rock, a shimmering lunar meteorite.

I called Louis Moinet owner Jean-Marie Schaller a “meteorite harvester” earlier, and this quote is why: “I’ve been collecting exceptional meteorites for twenty years. Each has its own story. My collection contains rare pieces, like the lunar meteorite Dhofar 461, known for its white-speckled interior. And I have a valuable meteorite from Mars that is one of 300 samples identified today. I also have the famous Allende, the oldest rock in the solar system, and Erg Chech, the oldest magmatic rock known, which comes from a protoplanet that vanished at some point. As for the Jbilet Winselwan, what makes it remarkable are the traces of amino acid, which might well be the first signs of life in the cosmos.”

Picture: Ineichen Auctioneers

My favorite meteorite-dialed watch is…

It is not the most subtle choice, I grant you that, but the heart wants what the heart wants, and that’s a Rolex GMT-Master II in white gold with a ceramic Pepsi bezel on an Oyster bracelet with a light meteorite dial. I didn’t even know this was my favorite meteorite-dialed watch until I tried it on. But it became very apparent that this was the otherworldly watch for me when I got the chance to put it on my wrist and wear it for a little while.

The Rolex did have a little skirmish inside my head with the platinum Speedmaster Professional Calibre 321 ref. 311.93.42.30.99.001, though. Not only does this Omega have an astonishing pitch-black onyx dial, but it also features pieces of lunar meteorite for the three sub-dials — how appropriate for a Moonwatch. The watch is a subtle combination of iconic functionality and ultra-luxury. You have to look twice to see that the black dial is more than just a black dial. The gray sub-dials have that color because of the material they’re made of, and the shine of the case is just too lustrous to be ordinary steel. When you hold the watch, that also becomes very clear. This Speedmaster is under-the-radar chic, exclusive, and subtly stunning. Plus, its €72,300 price is no joke.

Pepsi from heaven

In the end, Rolex won the short imaginary fight and put the Omega in second place on my meteorite list. It wasn’t because of its lower price of €46,250 but because it shows more meteorite. It’s a light dial with just a bit of texture at a glance, but a close look sends you on a mental trip across the universe. The combination of a light dial with the blue and red bezel works for me because it doesn’t make the watch look like your average Pepsi. And putting an Oyster bracelet on instead of a Jubilee is also a clever move. The instrumental and functional look of the sporty bracelet doesn’t draw any unnecessary attention to it and will keep you gazing at something that fell from the heavens.

Do you have a thing for meteorite dials? Any favorites? Let me know in the comments below.