Has this 105.012 case been refinished?

I recently acquired a 105.012-65 case from a reputable seller, and I'm curious what folks think of it. I was a little surprised at first, because the condition appeared to be much better than my 145.012-67. It has relatively sharp edges, and a clear difference between the brushed and polished surfaces. And it appears to have original (?) short/fat pushers, which are drilled into the case (which leads me to believe that everything is period correct).

But then what gave me pause is that from head-on, the thickness of the lugs appears quite different (particularly the bottom left lug), suggesting perhaps that it has undergone a moderate and inconsistent amount of polishing and/or refinishing? So then I popped a bezel on so I could measure both cases similarly with my calipers, and it appears that the 105.012 is about ~1mm smaller! Perhaps most telling is the difference in thickness between adjacent sections between the pushers and crown (the last photo). I know there can be slight variation in case shapes between references, but there's no way this individual case left the factory like this, right?

So does that settle it? How extreme of a case of polishing/refinishing is this? How much do you think it devalues it? Thanks,

Hi!

here is an amazing blog, I often use this for comparing!
https://www.chronoholic.com/post/the-omega-speedmaster-professional-a-case-study

Those lugs look super thin so I would say heavy refinish.
I've learned a case can still look sharp even after several polishes. But the polish quality (especially the direction of the polish), case shape and grain are usually the tells.

Well uh, mic drop. Saved this one haha. 😀

Ah yes, super helpful. I had seen that before but couldn't remember where it was, so thanks for posting! It is interesting that some of those lugs are relatively thin, like the MK2 and MK4 in particular. Although, since those correspond to the 105.012-66 and 145.022/012, they don't likely explain the thin-ness of my 105.012-65, unless mine is not actually an original/matching 105.012-65 midcase. And ironically, my 145.012-67 looks thicker than it's supposed MK4, more like the MK3 or MK5 (shrug?)...

You could also look at this killer 65!!
Crazy wonderful watch!

https://www.chronoholic.com/product...essional-ref-105-012-65-museum-grade-specimen

And of course - no strings attached to the seller!

Wow!

@ndgal is such an asset to the community and always has some incredible watches! His blog posts are so well written and always has beautiful eye candy. Plus, he’s an absolute pleasure to work with 👍

The finish isn’t factory, the transition between the polished and brushed surfaces is too crude and uneven, so it’s certainly been redone at some point.
That isn’t uncommon with 50 year old tool watches so as long as you’re aware of that and didn’t pay a premium for a mint case it’s not too big of a problem.