Did anyone here nab the 'bargain' Ultraman of the month?

Foo2rama · Nov 18, 2021

123Omega321
Hi all,

Nice to see this thread about the Ultraman I purchased.
Just to confirm all your thoughts on this speedy, it is indeed an original 'Ultraman'.
First I was kind of skeptical as this speedy is part of a larger collection that was being sold there with some of those watches not looking correct (incredibly poorly polished, wrong UG dials, doubtful M.N. military Tudor snowflake (selling very high so I might be wrong, and I'm far from an expert on any 'Marine Nationale' military pieces but the military engraving did not match others I found online). Also, the incorrectly placed Pulsations bezel (starting point should not be the 200 point, like Aludic mentioned before) added up to the doubts as someone without knowledge has been working on this watch.

Luckily, pulling some strings I managed to get an extract from the archives from Omega before the auction started confirming this indeed a correct Ultraman delivered to Switzerland in June, 1968. Would not have bid the 15k if I wasn't sure of it being correct.
In regard to some questions above about the serial number of the Ultraman, the relatively very short serial range the Ultraman was produced in is only about 3.000 numbers (26.076.xxx and 26.079.xxx).
The watch is currently at the watchmaker getting a service, should be al up and ready next week and looking forward to be wearing this rare speedy 😀!

All the best to you guys, not very active on this platform but hope to be someday.
Cheers

Did you disclose the orange hand when you submitted the extract?

Dan321 · Nov 18, 2021

I have read somewhere that Omega don’t have a record of which 145.012s were delivered with an orange hand and they only go off the photos submitted when applying for an extract, can any other members confirm if this is true? or is it just hearsay?
@123Omega321 please understand that i am not trying to discredit your watch, just learn about this particular reference.

Foo2rama · Nov 18, 2021

Dan321
I have read somewhere that Omega don’t have a record of which 145.012s were delivered with an orange hand and they only go off the photos submitted when applying for an extract, can any other members confirm if this is true? or is it just hearsay?
@123Omega321 please understand that i am not trying to discredit your watch, just learn about this particular reference.

that is why I asked.

Its unclear as to if they have the records. But it does appear watches sent in with pictures seem to always get the “blessing”

hand length and the slightly different dial do not seem to be consistently taken into account.

the problem is we are seeing a lot of ultramans pop up which seems to not mesh with production numbers versus regular watches.

hence when pieces show up esp one’s with other replacement parts given how easy it is to get a similar length but not exactly right orange hand a lot of flags get raised.

Dan321 · Nov 18, 2021

Foo2rama
that is why I asked.

Mira unclear as to if they have the records. But it does appear watches sent in with pictures seem to always get the “blessing”

hand length and the slightly different dial do not seem to be consistently taken into account.

the problem is we are seeing a lot of ultramans pop up which seems to not mesh with production numbers versus regular watches.

hence when pieces show up esp one’s with other replacement parts given how easy it is to get a similar length but not exactly right orange hand a lot of flags get raised.

Is there any indication from Omega of how many were produced? I read 50 but this seems to be constantly increasing, apologies if I’m going over old ground here

Foo2rama · Nov 18, 2021

Dan321
Is there any indication from Omega of how many were produced? I read 50 but this seems to be constantly increasing, apologies if I’m going over old ground here

I’m not that much of an expert on these. I defer to people that have done a systematic study of these.

Patrik83 · Nov 18, 2021

Dan321
Is there any indication from Omega of how many were produced? I read 50 but this seems to be constantly increasing, apologies if I’m going over old ground here

I have counted to more than 50. The 50 number was just a guess by someone. There are definitely more than 50 out there.

Mark020 · Nov 18, 2021

Tank number may give an indication. Anyone a clue about the highest and lowest serial and the number of samples?

Tad · Nov 18, 2021

123Omega321
Hi all,

Nice to see this thread about the Ultraman I purchased.
Just to confirm all your thoughts on this speedy, it is indeed an original 'Ultraman'.
First I was kind of skeptical as this speedy is part of a larger collection that was being sold there with some of those watches not looking correct (incredibly poorly polished, wrong UG dials, doubtful M.N. military Tudor snowflake (selling very high so I might be wrong, and I'm far from an expert on any 'Marine Nationale' military pieces but the military engraving did not match others I found online). Also, the incorrectly placed Pulsations bezel (starting point should not be the 200 point, like Aludic mentioned before) added up to the doubts as someone without knowledge has been working on this watch.

Luckily, pulling some strings I managed to get an extract from the archives from Omega before the auction started confirming this indeed a correct Ultraman delivered to Switzerland in June, 1968. Would not have bid the 15k if I wasn't sure of it being correct.
In regard to some questions above about the serial number of the Ultraman, the relatively very short serial range the Ultraman was produced in is only about 3.000 numbers (26.076.xxx and 26.079.xxx).
The watch is currently at the watchmaker getting a service, should be al up and ready next week and looking forward to be wearing this rare speedy 😀!

All the best to you guys, not very active on this platform but hope to be someday.
Cheers

Nice move! May I ask how you persuaded Omega to provide your with an extract without owning the watch and to get this turned around in a short time? Cheers

Mark020 · Nov 18, 2021

Mark020
Tank number may give an indication. Anyone a clue about the highest and lowest serial and the number of samples?

So based on the numbers from page 1: 26.073.96x to 26.079.78x
German tank number is: (see: https://www.statisticshowto.com/german-tank-problem)
Highest serial 978[9]-/-396[0] = 5829
Sample size more than 50 so let's assume 60
N=5829+(5829/60)-1
N=5829+97-1
N=5.925 so most likely 5.000 or 6.000 pieces.

Aludic · Nov 18, 2021

Interesting discussion and approach to consider the German Tank formula here. Not sure it applies, though, as the known range of Ultraman watches contains at least a few serials with an extract without mention of the ‘orange hand’ and is therefore a ‘broken’ range.

So, we might, at best, have established an upper limit to the number produced.

Still, I agree with others mentioning the number of sighted Ultraman watches already exceeds the earlier estimate of 50 and the number produced must be far bigger.

The number of them surfacing at auctions and sales is indicative as well. For comparison; try finding an WG Speedmaster Apollo 11 of which we know 500 were produced in 1994. Trust me, it takes a while to find one… Seen about five of them for sale over the course of two years.

This thread needs more pictures. 😀

Dan321 · Nov 18, 2021

Mark020
So based on the numbers from page 1: 26.073.96x to 26.079.78x
German tank number is: (see: https://www.statisticshowto.com/german-tank-problem)
Highest serial 978[9]-/-396[0] = 5829
Sample size more than 50 so let's assume 60
N=5829+(5829/60)-1
N=5829+97-1
N=5.925 so most likely 5.000 or 6.000 pieces.

So only 1% of have been ‘found’ to date? Have I interpreted that correctly?

Mark020 · Nov 18, 2021

Based on that calculation yes but that feels as a (too) low number for a rather recent watch compared to the Universal Geneve I keep a database on UG (as well as on Movado Polyplans). I have used the tank number approach on them. My rule of thumb is that about 5% has emerged in public in the last 15-20 years.

For instance: Movado PP app. 80 records and estimate of 2000 produced; so about 4% on a 100+ year old watch of which most in gold. As @Aludic says (implicitely) there may have been more batches.

Dan321 · Nov 18, 2021

Mark020
Based on that calculation yes but that feels as a (too) low number for a rather recent watch compared to the Universal Geneve I keep a database on UG (as well as on Movado Polyplans). I have used the tank number approach on them. My rule of thumb is that about 5% has emerged in public in the last 15-20 years.

For instance: Movado PP app. 80 records and estimate of 2000 produced; so about 4% on a 100+ year old watch of which most in gold. As @Aludic says (implicitely) there may have been more batches.

Thank you for taking time to do the calculation.
You don’t just learn about watches on this forum

Mark020 · Nov 19, 2021

The question is basically how many batches were produced. That is assuming that they were produced in batches with consecutive numbers. My knowledge on this in not in the Omega area but I know that Longines made batches in consecutive numbers, UG most like did as wel and Movado most likely did not (all in the years 1940-1960).

Some examples (reference-serial):

Movado

Universal Geneve (actually Berthoud)

Foo2rama · Nov 19, 2021

@Mark020

consecutive numbers in non consecutive batches seems to be the general consensus from that period.

ie you get runs of near consecutive numbers but there is variation in batch start numbers.

It’s generally thought that lemania delivered the movements in batches( box’s in an order) and those batches where then used slightly out of order.

Mark020 · Nov 19, 2021

At Longines it is - for references/batches I analysed - a 1:1 relation. If number 2 in the batch has serial -221 then number 23 has serial -242. At UG if - for the same reference - the serials are close the movement numbers will be very close but the difference in serials is not the same number as the difference in movement numbers