The MoonSwatch quest is limited in every way to Moonshine Gold.

Last year, later With the release of the MoonSwatch, a bioplastic Swatch version of Omega’s legendary Speedmaster Moonwatch, sparking the biggest buzz the watch market has ever seen, Swatch president Nick Hayek Jr. said “positive provocation” is at the heart of the brand. Announced today, however, a previously (first released) cryptic social media message details the first tracking of the first 11-strong collection of MoonSwatches.

Over the weekend, Swatch’s Instagram account announced the imminent arrival of the Moonshine Gold Mission. Each MoonSwatch is named after a different planet, with a “Mission to…” prefix (Mission to Mars, Mission to Neptune, etc.), while Moonshine Gold is Omega’s proprietary solid gold alloy used in some of its watches, including some. -After all gold Speedmaster models.

That has sparked a frenzy of speculation as to what kind of gold-inspired—or indeed all-gold—MoonSwatch is about to drop. The answer came this morning: a similar version of the Gray Mission to the Moon model (the closest thing to the classic Speedmaster), but only with the chronograph seconds-hand covered in Moonshine gold (retail price £250 ($298) versus £228 ($272) for the regular version). ) with).

Hayek’s willingness to disrupt those who enjoy drinking in the buzz his own brand creates doesn’t end with a painfully obvious release (if the comments on Instagram are anything to go by). A key feature of MonSwatch’s history has been shortages since Swatch shops around the world were flooded with buyers and watchers, with Swatch boutiques out of stock and watches unavailable online.

This has now largely stabilized: Swatch reports expected sales of 1.5 million MoonSwatches in the year since its launch, but resale value has dropped significantly. On watch marketplace Chrono24, the Mission to the Moon now lists at the £350 ($417) mark, a healthy return on the £228 ($272) product, but down from over £800 ($953) last spring. .

Perhaps the real mission of Munshi’s mission is to rekindle the issue of scarcity. It’s only available today, and only in four locations worldwide: Tokyo, where it goes on sale at 9:30 JST, and Milan, Zurich and London – not the US. All the locations, Swatch says, have a thematic connection to gold: the city of London (the watch goes on sale at 6:30 p.m. in a pop-up on the Royal Exchange, the historic center of financial trading) is where the price of gold is. For example, Zurich’s Paradeplatz is the central hub of the city’s banking district.