176.007 & cal. 1040 Production Totals and the Speedmaster 125 Conspiracy Theory

gwzymytk

Thank you very much for the comprehensive analysis! Great work and extremely commendable effort!

My 125 cal. 1041 has the serial in the 332373XX range.

I am somewhat familiar with sampling and data analysis (although not a statistician, just involved in medical research); your conclusions seem valid from where I'm standing.
However, for the sake of argument alone, I would like to bring into discussion a few elements:

1) - Occurrence of sales vs number of units - what we're actually dealing with here is, in my view, the rate of occurrence of an event - in our case, a watch being sold.
Most watches come from people who don't wear them, then sell to dealers/shops that post them on the Internet, or try and sell them directly. If for either aesthetic reason or financial gain this watch "gets the short straw" more often when a selling decision is made, then it will be found much more often on the open market.

2) Possible sampling errors - your study includes watches from international forums; however, many countries have dedicated selling services on and off the Internet, on which watches are sold and bought in large numbers. It may be possible that other case numbers get sold/traded internally and therefore never make it to your list, hence skewing the results in favor of the more collectible Speedmaster 125.

These are, again, possible biases and are in no way meant to discredit your work; they are more or less the equivalent of "possible limitations of the study", part of the Discussion section of medical papers that peer reviewers tend to ask for the most 😀

Andy K

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. 👍

gwzymytk

1) - Occurrence of sales vs number of units - what we're actually dealing with here is, in my view, the rate of occurrence of an event - in our case, a watch being sold.
Most watches come from people who don't wear them, then sell to dealers/shops that post them on the Internet, or try and sell them directly. If for either aesthetic reason or financial gain this watch "gets the short straw" more often when a selling decision is made, then it will be found much more often on the open market.

gwzymytk

2) Possible sampling errors - your study includes watches from international forums; however, many countries have dedicated selling services on and off the Internet, on which watches are sold and bought in large numbers. It may be possible that other case numbers get sold/traded internally and therefore never make it to your list, hence skewing the results in favor of the more collectible Speedmaster 125.

omegastar

But out of 2.000 original units how many should still exist according to statistics?

gwzymytk

Corrected, it was 38*****. In my defense, I've wrote that post at 3AM

SpikiSpikester

There's so much in this thread that reminds me why the forum can be such a great place 👍😁

Andy K

I work with data all the time

dialstatic

It shows 👍

Excellent work on my favorite calibre once again, and very clear write up. While not conclusive (as you yourself state several times) it certainly has plausibility going for it. It convinced me that something is going on, at least. I am equally suspicious of factor 10 'coincidences'. The following remark is not to discredit anything you said but rather as possibility to strengthen it further.

Your assessment that the 2,000 number must be incorrect, rests strongly on 232 being a ‘reasonable’ (or even 'typical') amount of observations of a population of 82,200 over a 6 month period using your method. Although intuitively it indeed feels more reasonable than observing 2.75% of all 125’s over the same period, we really don’t know one way or another. One (rather laborious) solution would be to do the same for other watches. Ideally, we would need a watch produced in the same time period, and one of which a production run is solidly documented.

Although I have little knowledge of the Moonwatch, it does come to mind as an option. It seems to be the best-document Omega watch in existence, and is certainly comparable to the 1040/1’s in terms of (contemporary) price, style etc. Does ‘Moonwatch Only’ not list production runs for specific references (the 145.022-74 for example)?

The enormous popularity of this watch might actually help in establishing an ‘upper bound’ for your observations. With the recent (and current) value increases, I would say that the incentive to buy and sell a vintage Moonwatch has never been higher, so we might expect a relatively large share of the population to appear on the market. If, in a six-month period, one would observe, say, 1% of the population, then I would say there’s no way the 2.75% for the 125 could be accurate. If you would find a percentage that’s closer to the 0.282% number, why, that would be fantastic 😉

uwsearch

Here are some 176.004 serial numbers that were readable on ebay pictures (and others): 34243323 35605868 34254198 36259132 35598835 35603818 35603812 34681912 35606874 34254045 35605351
I've a 176.007 from 13/8/1973 34251986
And I've an interesting 176.004 with a 38287671 cal 1041 !!

I noticed that many Seamaster dive watches got their movement swapped during service (30%). That was a common practice in Switzerland where "Gameo" was servicing Omega watches. I was told that they had a stock of serviced movements ready to fit any incoming watches with same movement, but not always: I even got a 166.091 with a 1001 instead of a 1002 and that 176.004 with a 1041 fitted instead of a 1040.
I hope it helps.

uwsearch

with a wrong bracelet (should be 1170/653)

Andy K

I'd be VERY interested to know the production date of this one.