105.012-65 - Recent Auction Result

I was watching this Speedmaster auction that ended yesterday and am curious if anyone in the OF family won this piece?

The auction house offered a very sparse description and incorrectly stated the reference as 105.012-66. The watch appears to be in nice condition, but of course difficult to tell with any certainty from the photos provided. The auction house was also unable to open the watch so no movement photos were available. The bezel appears to be in very good condition and the case looks great as well. Lume has some minor deterioration on 2 of the plots, but has a very pleasing color and matches the hands. Note there is some deterioration on the hands around the centre post. Fat neck pushers and crown look original. 1056 bracelet looks very nice and is dated 3/66, inline and correct for a 105.012-65.

Based on my own due diligence with the auction house, there is no omega logo on the crystal and some stray fibres are present on the dial. This would lead one to assume that the watch has been opened up at some point during its life. This coupled with the lack of movement photos does introduce risk. The chronograph function was also not working when depressing the pushers.

Anyone here win this one? Curious to see how it turns out.

The final sale price was $7,500 USD + 25% Buyers Premium = $9,375 USD.

Note, the last 6 photos below were not part of the auction houses public ad/description.

Yeah, I was watching that one also. Definitely a bit of a crap shoot, given the non-functional chronograph, but nice hands, dial, and bezel. I’d asked an expert for comment and he had figured it to hammer around $8k. Looks like he was pretty much on target.

The 2 two dots at 12 looks kinda shady...

I thought the lume looked too good to be true, but I’m somewhat doubtful of a relume. I’ve seen this bright yellow/orange lume color on other 65s. That sloppy lume on the 12 o’clock marker also raised a flag, but I’ve seen other 65s with sloppy/uneven lume in the indicies. If you look at the 1 o’clock lume plot, you can see a small amount of luminous material has flaked away on the interior of the plot. That type of deterioration usually comes with age from what I’ve seen…makes me lean towards not being a relume.

This was a US based auction house. The gentleman I spoke to said that the watch made it into their auction house by accident. That they were completing an estate sale for a wealthy family - mostly art, furniture and silverware, and that one of the family members found the Speedmaster in a drawer. They did not know what it was, and in offered it up to be included in the auction. They did not share details on who the wealthy family was (I asked).

This could end up being a steal if a service reveals no significant issues with the movement.

I read such stories about accidental finds when I was looking for my Speedy 65, and when I asked for an extract, it turned out that the watch was already reserved. The search took two years, and these "reserved" watches are still for sale.

It’s difficult to draw any conclusions with certainty given the poor quality of photos. At a minimum, at least we have a record of its sale and some photos for the archives. Hopefully we see it pop up again as I’m very curious!