That is fascinating. I know see why original component prices are so high. The whole $20k for a bezel thing has been blowing my mind but the stakes are high with these 29-5’s obviously. Oh to find a retired watchmaker’s drawer of discarded bits…
Try Biel . There is a Cache' of rare replaced Parts....
Perezcope investigated this one;
https://perezcope.com/2023/04/09/tr...WVpz-lCTOsXZXoLeN70TFhR0JxKlyF5l1HV26g1rud8zM
Great article as usual, but he doesn't follow up on his introductory tease about the violent gypsy clan! What's the story there?
My understanding is that the watch specialists at Phillips had ‘groomed’ a very wealthy collector from Mainland China known as ‘Ghost’ months in advance and once a certain price level was reached, the guy got into a bidding frenzy.
Early Speedmasters are pretty rare. One of the reasons could be that since they were of such poor build quality, most people simple threw them away.
Well well...
This isn't the first time for Mr Bacs to be involved in this type/sort of watches??
I do hope that he might be a bit more humble in the future and not so Hollywood-isch...?😉
Edit : but thats a great relume. Not worth 3massif though…
That comment is ( searching for the right Word here...) without substance / an assumption / strange .... Aurel acts exactly like the buyers wants him to be. He fills a void. He is an actor. He creates trends. He is one of many reasons, that certain vintage watches reached stratospheric heights. Bad for us normal collectors. Good for the industry. I watched him since the mid 90's, when he was with different Auction houses and learned the ropes. Cosied up with the Rich and famous in Munich and elsewhere. Bidders often pay more as they wanted to , because they feel like belonging to the inner circle of a close knit society. So, he gives them what they want. And got a fortune out of it as well.
Nope. And whilst I really appreciate the research done, the sensational and accusatory tone is exaggerated a little too far. Examples aren’t just the violent gypsy clan mentioned, but also the simple fact that the watch under scrutiny here only came with an Extract of the Archives, according to Phillips. The author refers to that as a “Certificate of Authenticity issued by the Omega Heritage Department” which is quite something else as, unlike the EoA, a CoA would require inspection in Biel. In this case, all Omega did was acknowledging that the serial once left the factory in a 2915-1. Nothing less, certainly nothing more either.
To me, it doesn’t seem like Omega ever inspected the watch in hand, nor did they endorse it. Still, a fraudulent record sale is quite undesirable to Omega, but Omega’s active role insinuated by the author seems unfounded to me, except for bidding on the piece, perhaps.
Still, this article is an interesting read and testifies of serious research done. It just would have been better if it was more factually correct (and slightly less ‘tabloid’ to my taste).
That comment is ( searching for the right Word here...) without substance / an assumption / strange .... Aurel acts exactly like the buyers wants him to be. He fills a void. He is an actor. He creates trends. He is one of many reasons, that certain vintage watches reached stratospheric heights. Bad for us normal collectors. Good for the industry. I watched him since the mid 90's, when he was with different Auction houses and learned the ropes. Cosied up with the Rich and famous in Munich and elsewhere. Bidders often pay more as they wanted to , because they feel like belonging to the inner circle of a close knit society. So, he gives them what they want. And got a fortune out of it as well.
