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The following is a report I did back in 2008 regarding inside etchings on Speedmaster casebacks. At the time Chuck Maddox was with us and acknowledged the in depth research I did. here's to you Chuck .... :obscene-drinkingcheers:

First off let me tell you all that I idolize Chuck Maddox for the amount of work, and knowledge he's put together in his writings. No one is more courteous and helpful then the man himself when it comes to answering questions related to Omega or even watches in general. Which leads me to the second thing I have to say....

I, for some very strange reason, have an obsession with Omega Speedmaster casebacks. It all started when I wanted a new caseback for my 1999 Speedy pro (It was worn and I wanted a new one). So one day (Years ago) I had Swatch Group replace the backing. When I received the watch back from service I took off the new caseback and out of curiosity decided to match the two to see how different they were. Well, I was in for a huge surprise! My factory fresh backing had a much thicker font then the new replacement backing supplied by Omega Toronto. Not only that but there were subtle differences in the finish of the 'Hippocampus', meaning that the factory seamonster wasn't as 'CRISP' as the replacement...but that didn't really astonish me since I knew there were different manufacturers. Now what REALLY surprised me was the inside markings on the two. The original, factory fresh, untampered caseback had a child like messy stencil that looked like a 2yr old got at it with a scalpel. Here's the picture of the original 1999 caseback (Now sold)...

Now, compare it to the inside markings of the replacement backing DIRECT from Omega (Bought the replacement new in 2004)...

Notice how much cleaner the stamp is compared to the original 'Kindergarten' caseback? Now a couple years have passed since I bought the replacement caseback and my eye's are now slowly getting worse and reading the thinner font is hell. So I decided to get another replacement caseback from Otto Frei and hope that the font was thicker then my current backing. Well...it is! It's actually made by the same 'Kindergarten' caseback manufacturer that I originally had on my watch. Here's a pic of the inside of the NEW caseback (Just delivered today from Otto Frei)...

Now, this is the part where Chuck comes into play. Awhile back I remembered surfing his site and coming upon this article....

http://home.xnet.com/~cmaddox/omega/art ... s_ask.html

In the article Chuck explains that the inside of the caseback (Although being genuine and not right for the year of the serial#) has been altered for some unexplained reason possibly by hand (And how can one not blame him for assuming that). I'm now here to historically correct my respected teacher! Within the past hour (I was bored) I was able to quickly pull these 5 images off the net to verify that there IS an Omega Manufacturer out there that has a stamp press made/written by kindergarten children...

I can now honestly, and truly, say that the messy stamp on the inside of some of the casebacks (All of them have a 'pie' emblem with the letters "GRSA" in them) are perfectly legit. And hopefully with this new found information Chuck can now update his site with these findings. After all, who would want to think that their caseback has been butchered when in fact that is not the case. Now the question is....Why the messy stamping on all "GRSA" backings?