Check out Speedmaster125.com for verified production data

More up to date information on this topic can be found at calibre1040.com

EDIT: This is an ongoing project, feel free to post your cal. 1040/1041 serial numbers or production data in this thread or send me a PM. I'll update the charts periodically.
LATEST UPDATE: Sept. 18, 2016.

OK, this is a bit long so I understand if everyone but the most dedicated 1040 nerds gives it the tl;dr treatment. I have broken this article into three parts for easier digestion.

Part I - Using Serial Numbers to Estimate Production of cal. 1040 References
Part II - The Speedmaster 125 Conspiracy
Part III - Other Possible Explanations

Part I - Using Serial Numbers to Estimate Production

Since November of 2015 I've been collecting serial numbers, production data from Archive Extracts, and sales dates from receipts or warranty papers from cal. 1040 and 1041 Omegas. I was hoping to establish clear production timeframes and lower and upper serial limits for each reference in the family, but I've stumbled onto something pretty interesting that I wasn't looking for: production estimates by reference.

At first I was just documenting as I stumbled across a serial number, usually in forum threads or eBay auctions. Later I searched a little more methodically at old FS ads and auction listings, searching each source by each reference. My spreadsheet looks like this:


I document the entire SN if it is given or visible and the SN is only obscured for this article. If someone obscures the last several digits I only keep it on my list until I find another watch that could be a duplicate (so a 176.007ST showing 35592XXX is removed from the list if another 176.007ST comes along with a serial of 35592001, since even though the odds are only 1 in 1,000 that it is the same watch, it still could potentially be the same).

As my list grew, I started noticing an uneven distribution of case references. There were way more 176.007s than 176.004s, for example. This makes sense, since it just seems that the 007 was more common than the Big Blue. So I made a pivot table to break down the # of observations by reference for cal . 1040:



That distribution seems to generally match what you'd expect: -001 and -010 are fairly uncommon, -007 is the most common, etc. Next I added percentage:



Then I realized that because we know the total production of cal. 1040 from A Journey Through Time to be 82,200, a simple formula applying the above percentages to 82,200 generates some rough production estimates:




So do these numbers hold up? Other than the 82,200 the only other source of production numbers by reference that I'm aware of for a cal. 1040 watch was a quote from Marco Richon in this 2006 thread in which Richon referred to the production of the Mark IV (ref. 176.009) as "near 10,000 if not less." My estimate of 8,149 seems to be reasonable given Richon's estimate.

I'm certainly aware that 232 is a small sample size, and is only 0.282% of overall production, but I believe the observed distribution of serial numbers makes for a decent proxy for actual production distribution - even if the margin of error is +/- 1,000. It is particularly useful as an estimate of production of a given case reference relative to the others. The observations are an attempt at quantifying in some way the anecdotal sense that I (and I suspect other collectors) have regarding these watches. In other words, you can easily observe that -007 and -002 were the most common, and the -010 in 20 micron gold plate was the least common, and the observations provide some data to back it up. Using serial number also automatically corrects for factors that could cloud un-tabulated observations such as the same person posting the about same watch many times or of a watch being sold and resold numerous times over the years.

So what of cal. 1041?

 

Part II - The Speedmaster 125 Conspiracy

Before I throw more math at you, let me briefly recap the generally accepted story of the Speedmaster 125.

The Speedmaster 125 was initially released in 1973 to celebrate the 125th anniversary (quasquicentennial if you're a fan of long words) of Louis Brandt's founding of his watch shop at La Chaux-de-Fonds. It was an expensive piece at the time. In a US catalog from 1973 reproduced on old-omegas.com, the Speedmaster 125 sold for $425 while the moon watch ref. 145.022 was $225.

The watch was heavily promoted, appearing in period catalogs from 1973 through 1975, but the high price and the huge, heavy, and non-traditional case may have contributed to slow sales. Extracts from the Archives show that the 125 was still being made as late as 1976 and an example from the 2007 Omegamania auction had sales documentation of an example being sold in 1977. The serial numbers I've collected show that a big chunk of the highest serial numbers (in the 38 million range) of any watches in the cal. 1040/1041 family were Speedmaster 125/Cal. 1041, suggesting the Speedmaster didn't do well in the first wave (35 million range).

Forty-three years after its introduction, they are still common on the market, even more so than several cal. 1040 contemporary references. They are also more commonly seen for sale than other more recent Omega Limited Editions that were made in similar numbers (think Japan Racing LE 3570.40 of 2,004 pieces from 2004 and the Planet Ocean cal. 2500 Liquidmetal LE of 1,948 pieces from 2009).

This is surprising given Omega often cites that this watch was limited to 2,000 pieces and it seems they have been more common than expected for many years. Chuck Maddox pointed this phenomenon out in an article he wrote in 2000. The general consensus has been that collectors rarely hang on to this watch and tend to flip it because of the extreme size and weight. This, the theory goes, would explain the high numbers of examples for sale. In other words, simple high turnover of the same examples we see on the market. There have also been replacement dials, cases, and bracelets available on the market for years, which leads to the possibility of ordinary 1040 movements being recased into "NOS" 125 builds, similar to the "Watchco" Seamaster 300s.

The watch itself isn't marked as a limited edition with a number XXXX/2,000. Some were stamped with an alphanumeric code on the back, but others weren't. It is unclear what that code signified, if anything. And oddly, the early promotional materials and ads don't mention the 2,000 figure but referred to it as "commemorative"; Omega only started referencing that number later. Because of the surprising availability, lack of markings, and lack of early references to 2,000 pieces, several people have wondered aloud whether Omega might have actually made more than 2,000 examples. If this conspiracy theory is true, then the dates of sale and manufacture I just described lead to a completely opposite interpretation (and the phrases above in bold that many people have accepted as fact over the years are actually false assumptions). Maybe the 125 sold so well, and at a high mark up, that Omega just kept making them. The Swiss watch crisis was just starting to hit in 1975, so its possible that Omega wanted to move as many popular, high-margin pieces as possible.

Back to the math. Since November 2015, I've observed 55 Speedmaster 125s. If the 2,000 figure is correct, then I've seen 2.75% of all cal. 1041s produced. That seems like a high percentage of serial numbers to be observed in a short period of time to me. So what is a more realistic percentage that I should have expected to have seen? If only there was a similar movement, with a similar collector following, from the same era, that we had some observed data on, with a known production figure….Oh yeah! Cal. 1040.


Recall that I've observed 232 of all 82,200 cal. 1040 serials in the exact same timeframe using the same methods. That works out to 0.282% of all cal. 1040s observed during a 6 month window, 40+ years after being made. So why have I been able to observe 2.75% of all cal. 1041s during the same timeframe, also 40+ years after manufacture?? Comparing those percentages (1041 observed : 1040 observed) yields a ratio of 9.744. That number quantifies the phenomenon that Chuck Maddox and countless other collectors have experienced: it seems like there are more Speedmaster 125s out there than you'd expect. And that ratio confirms that the Speedy 125 is seen nearly 10 times more than you'd expect!!

So which number do we trust? The 82,200 production number of cal. 1040 from AJTT, or the 2,000 production number of the Speedmaster 125, also from AJTT?

For the moment, let's assume that 2,000 is incorrect, and that for an Omega sports chrono of that era, a collector like me should be able to observe 0.2822% of all the pieces in the observation period of November 2015 through April 2016. Extrapolating using those assumptions gets us to a production estimate of 19,487 Speedmaster 125s! That's a far cry from 2,000.

Look closely at the extrapolated cal. 1040 production figures - Omega was likely to have produced more than 2,000 of even the infrequently seen 176.001 and 176.010. Remember, for at least 15 years, collectors have been pointing out that the Speedmaster 125 doesn't seem uncommon enough for a piece from 1973 that was limited to 2,000 pieces. Since we have a sampling of its contemporaries with cal. 1040, we can infer how often we should expect to see it. Not only is it much more common that you would expect, but it should be even less common than any cal. 1040 except the 176.010MD.

Foil Hat Time -So here's the theory: Someone at Omega just dropped a zero and Richon and others went with that number. As simple as that. The real production number was 20,000. This explanation is simple and explains the "factor of ten" discrepancy. I work with data all the time and any time results appear to be 10x off of the expected result, a red flag is raised and a hunt for an extra or dropped zero or shifted decimal point begins. In almost all instances, one of those ends up being found and the discrepancy is resolved.

 

Part III - Other Possible Explanations

Possibility 1: The 1041 movement is more commonly shown online than cal. 1040. Perhaps sellers feel more compelled to prove that the movement in a Speedmaster is a cal. 1041 and not a more common cal. 1040 because buyers know the movement is exclusive to the watch. Yes it seems sellers should show a movement shot but because the serial on a 1041 can be hidden by the rotor, movement photos of cal. 1040 are more likely to show a serial number than movement pics of a 1041. So I don't think this results in the factor of 10 and if anything, the SN being on the rotor of cal. 1040 but not 1041 would make the 1041 less likely to be shown online.

Possibility 2: The aforementioned propensity of collectors to "flip" Speedmaster 125s. Perhaps more people hang onto their other 1040s and more people flip 041s, leading to more FS ads and thus more movement pics. Maybe, but again we're talking about a factor of 10. Are Speedmaster 125s really ten times more likely to be flipped? I doubt it.

Possibility 3: The number of serial numbers observed has no meaningful correlation to production volume. Maybe certain reference's casebacks are harder to remove to allow documenting or photographing the movement. Maybe certain models were marketed to parts of the world that are unlikely to pop up on my searches of the western internet. Maybe the Speedmaster 125 is just talked about relatively more often than its contemporaries due to its unusual looks. This is kind of a generic "other" explanation to account for this discrepancy.

Possibility 4: AJTT/Omega is wrong about the 1040 production numbers, and there were much fewer than 82,200 made. Seems unlikely to be the sole reason for the discrepancy. We're talking about a factor of 10x, which would require the real number of cal. 1040s to be closer to 8,000 for the Speedmaster 125 numbers to make sense, and that would make the real numbers of specific references of cal. 1040 to be REALLY small.

Possibility 5: AJTT/Omega is wrong about the 1041 production numbers, and there were much more than 2,000 Speedmaster 125s made. I'm a believer.

I welcome any other theories or insights. I don't think I've proven anything but I do think that these results are rather compelling, enough so to cast legitimate doubt on Omega's official story of 2,000 Speedmaster 125s.

 

You magnificent bastard!

Nice write up and nice effort put into putting it all together.

 

Nice work and excellent writeup.

Since Omega advertised that the Speedmaster 125 "carries the certificate of the Swiss Institutes for Official Chronometer Tests", would it be possible to enquire with COSC how many of these were issued certificates?

 

Couldn't hurt to ask but based on the FAQs on the COSC site I wouldn't have much hope.

http://www.cosc.ch/faq.php?lang=en

"Which kind of information can a buyer of a certified chronometer watch get from the COSC ?

None at all. The COSC is the depositor of the analysis results which belong to his customers. He is not allowed to communicate these results to anybody else than the legal owners.
The buyer must address directly to the head office of his chronometer brand-name

 

Thanks guys! I have run into dead ends with Omega and the Omega Museum on other inquiries in the past, but I plan on passing this article to them sometime soon. I hadn't thought of asking COSC directly but that FAQ doesn't give me much hope. I imagine to most people my wild goose chase is pointless and they would just take Richon and Omega at their word and write me off as just some dork on the Internet. So I'm not hoping to rewrite history, and I'm happy to merely spark a little conversation.

 

And I just checked ebay and new, previously undocumented (by me) Speedy 125 has been listed.Purchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network So the number of 1041s is up to 56, which updates the "conspiracy" projection to 19,841.

 

Thanks for posting this, Andy! Looking forward to having a read on my commute a little later - cheers!

 

Quick update: I consider this project to be an ongoing work in progress and will (and already have) continue to update the charts as I come across new data.

If you are willing to share I'd appreciate it if you could help the project by sharing the serial numbers/case references of any cal. 1040s or 1041s you may have. If you happen to have any Extracts from the Archives, the production date would be great too. Either share directly in this thread, or if you don't want that information to be "out there" you can send it to me via PM.

I won't update this thread every single time I get new data but periodically I'll refresh this thread with updates. Thanks!

 

If you observe the 125 serial numbers you will see that there are three batches of watches, a 35 million, a 36 million and finally a 38 million batch. All 125 with case back markings have a 35 million serial. This leads to the theory that the 2.000 anniversary pieces did in fact sell very well with the case back marking. Omega produced two more batches of watches because of high demand. They couldn't say to the first buyers that they produced more than first said, so they said nothing. The two later batches have no markings on the back because they are not part of the 2.000 limited models.
2.000 mvts were produced according to AJTT, not even one for spare.

 

Great work again!

Did you work in the team who solved the German tanks problem?

 

Impressing

Sent you the available data of my two Mark IV through PM.

 

I bought a 176.007 the other week from KRLYUZH the serial number was 3625 something. It was from 1975. I dont have the watch to hand, it is in the UK and I am in Kuwait until August. Will pm you the whole serial number when I get back if you need it.
Intresting write up.

 

I think there were three tight batches and some produced in between:

Batch 1 includes serials 3507XXX. Here shown with dates from EoA when available:

This batch is from 73. Mine is that 8/7/73 one, and it does not have an alphanumeric code on the caseback. So maybe by then the first 2,000 had been alotted? Or maybe it was polished out or replaced along the way. Is there an upper limit to the serials you've observed with the caseback number? That would be interesting to know.

Then there's this looser grouping higher in the 35 million range, only one known production date in mid 1974:



Batch 2 - the 3625 and 3626XXXX - through early 1975:


Another loose grouping. This one includes the ONLY 37 million SN I've seen on either cal. 1040 or 1041. (I didn't see the actual movement- it is from a 2007 Antiquorum listing so it could be a typo): [EDIT- I have since been made aware of another 37million SN - on a cal. 1040]



Batch 3 is the biggest, including 3828 and 3829XXXX. This batch is very late in the game, including late 75 and through mid 76. The Swiss watch crisis was fully going on, so it is understandable that Omega was a) phasing out the higher cost 1040 in favor of the 1045 and b) producing whatever buyers wanted to maintain revenue.


I'm totally with you - it is REALLY suspect that they would make exactly 2,000 pieces, and not one spare.

 

Oh and breaking it down by percentages, here's where the numbers fall by batch:

 

Thanks, but I think I already have yours from the sales listing.

 

Got them, thanks!!

 

Tanks, er, um thanks!

 

And thanks to the serial info from another member I'm now aware of one other SN starting with 37 million (cal. 1040).