So this is a weird one.

Was posted for $39,000 three weeks ago, showed as Reserved for a hot minute, now up for what is obviously a ridiculous price. So, pricing aside...

The actual objects we seem to have here are a super clean Base 1000 bezel on a 145.012-67. The Speedy itself is in the Ultraman range and and the lume looks like it could be "caramel", although very dirty, aged caramel (Nutella? ).

From the pictures, could this be one of the glossy black dials (which some say appear on non-orange-hand watches in the Ultraman range)?

Is this an original Base 1000 bezel or a repro? If a repro, this seems to be a very weird, sub-optimal way to try to package and sell it.

Now onto the seller/listing: Swedish seller claims this was his father's watch, found last month in a box in the garage yada yada yada... But he also claims that he can produce pictures of his father wearing the watch from 1978. Somehow narrowed it down to either bought new in Sweden in 1968 or bought secondhand in Manhattan in 1978. As to why there is no Extract ordered... Who knows? I disengaged conversation before I could get the purported pictures or ask the Extract question.

The seller was somewhat strange, talking about how Speedmaster values are all over the place and climbing, and and also how he couldn't find an insured shipping service (for his, at the time, requested ~$30,000+ price) and needed to do any international trade face-to-face (I tried to point him to FedEx and Parcel Pro, pointed out I just received a ~$25,000 shipment from Europe the week before...)

My (uneducated) guess is that it is a legit Base 1000 bezel accidentally on a basic (non-glossy) Speedmaster. And that the seller is not necessarily a faker but instead is a non-watch person who did a bunch of hasty online research after finding the watch and now has a way over-inflated sense of its value after seeing $95,000 eBay Ultramen etc. Seems a roundabout way to sell a fake Base 1000 bezel and a passed-off Ultraman for an experienced faker, but maybe this is "feints within feints within feints" as Frank Herbert would put it.

Personally, I expressed provisional interest at $25,000 ($15,000 for the bezel, $10,000 for the watch) but then pulled out after I was shot down and the conversation got weird... Seller claims he had "many serious bids over $30,000" and that they believed market price was between $30,000 and $39,000. Then it got "RESERVED". ...Then now, Lamborghini pricing

Overall, just a weird experience with a weird watch. What does the forum think? Legit bezel? Glossy dial? Master faker?


All pictures made available:








https://www.chrono24.com/omega/very...dmaster-professional-pre-moon--id10340883.htm

 

https://omegaforums.net/threads/new-member-from-sweden-a-beginner.89582/#post-1165980

100k ...

 

Whelp. At least that proves my theory about the seller...

 

Oh my lord... What has happened here?

First OP asks help from knowledgeable members in this forum about his watch, value indication etc...

And then goes and does something like this?

What does he expect to get out of this?
I think things are just getting weirder and weirder...

 

$5-7K watch (once the bezel is removed) plus, what $15k bezel = worth $20K. Where is the rest coming from?

 

A world full of stupid, greedy, unethical idiot assholes. And there is nothing you can do about it. Deal with it...not that I like it, but deal with it, it's survivable.

 

Could argue the bezel was worth $20,000+ if original and in that condition... If the dial is the glossy/satin/metallic dial that comes in the Ultraman range... No idea what market value even is for that given lack of precedents. Others here may know from personal experience (oh how I wish I did). But impossible to tell from pictures... Unless anyone has opinions thereon?

 

A 145.012-67 was just sold at an auction in Denmark for 13.000€ (incl. hammer cost) that fit the serial of an Ultraman, had the dark black dial and correct brown lume, only 2 digits from another confirmed Ultraman sold also in Denmark, and this particular watch had a straight white painted chrono hand (close to an original Ultraman in terms of size) with orange shining thru the paint.

So this was a watch that had an actual straight chrono hand, much closer in speculation to potentially be a “real” Ultraman than the one here above. So that’s how high you could speculate someone to go to in terms of price. But the Denmark watch was waaay closer to speculation than this one here.

 

Nice original condition; wabi sabi. Price wise a bit hard to swallow.

The $95k Ultraman on Ebay is another piece that is hard for me to reconcile in terms of value.

A mint 1000 bezel (extremely rare) is $10-15000, that I can somewhat relate to (similar to the fragile bakelite 6542 insert but at 3 to 4 times the 1000 bezel price) but $10,000 for a Rolex fuschia Pepsi insert? A bit bonkers. Even at $4000 for the fuschia insert is pure madness to me. One can buy a nice watch with that sum of money.

Collecting vintage watches can often be illogical.

IMO, Spacefruit has done a sterling job with the SP101 and the excellent updated price chart helps put things into perspective. A real labour of love.

 

Phillips sold and Ultraman last december for 76K and something rare like a 2915-2 at 150K.

How in heaven this guy priced that watch (whitout proving that is an Ultraman ) for 100K??????

 

While the bezel may be worth 10k, removing it from the watch will mean that you'll have to find a, what, 4k DON replacement.

 

Although I believe the owners of this fact, we still have no pictures (which I am sure are difficult to capture the effect, like chocolate dials, but which can be captured by a half decent photographer) which I, and certainly a lot of others, would love to see out of quasi-academic curiosity. So to me, saying this, means nothing. My 145.012 also has a glossy/satin/deep-black dial, but so far, in pictures, I can't see the descriptive difference between it and the ultraman dial. But I could imagine it, if I wanted to. Yes, the lume also apparently has a certain patina, but that particular batch of lume could have been used up on watches that happened to be lumed at the same time that it took to use it up and that coincidentally included some 'ultramen'... they are not the only watches of this reference to exhibit a caramelly lume (and not all of them had this color either) and the next mix of lume slightly different etc (i.e. the cook was a bit too heavy on the salt)...

 

An Ultraman watch or a Base 1000 bezel are already pretty much unobtanium but having both come together in a package?

Really, what are the odds?!

 

The watch is in the Ultraman range.....but is that an Ultraman?
The only answer would be an extract. then if that is a real Ultraman with a base 1000 bezel, 100k would no longer be an insane price.

 

This. No one has conclusively proven that the Ultraman had a special dial. MWO mentions that it is possible but SP101 (William) is openly doubtful and Omega extracts for accepted Utraman watches have never mentioned anything about the dial, they refer specifically to the orange hand or perhaps have mentioned 'Special Equipment".

This Ebay watch is all smoke and mirrors. Even if it were originally an Ultraman, there is strong evidence to suggest the archive wouldn't verify it on an extract without seeing if it had an orange hand, since in fact their records on these are sketchy. Some extracts have been given, but other owners have been asked to send photos. Unless you are an auction house of course, they seem to manage, even when they send the wrong serial. It would be an extreme leap of faith indeed to spend big coin on this for the Ultraman angle, the bezel perhaps but the other? Brave bordering on daft.

 

Black Base1000 bezels started with 2915-3's, stopped with 2998-2's. This bezel most likely made its way onto the watch by a watchmaker who serviced several watches simultaneously and mixed up the parts (so unlucky 2998 owner, lucky 145.012 owner).

It did not leave the factory this way...

 

I am asking, what's next? A real Ultraman with a Sapphire caseback, a plastic crown, and an organic composite prototype crystal?

 

So according to the other thread it’s possible the watchmaker who serviced the watch in 1986 put the Base 1000 on the watch? It’s hardly a service bezel, though you would think they would put on a newer rather than an older version, but I guess no one back then could predict the absolutely insane prices these type of things go for nowadays.

Or is someone faking these bezels as well now?

 

I'm going to find me an older, independent watchmaker to service my FOIS in a short while, here's hoping it'll come back with a DON and a cal. 321

 

Thanks for the info, since Bezel are still a big mess for me