Hunt for a late 80s speedy

I've been on a hunt for a good late 80s birth year speedy for a few years now.

I've been tracking for a long time but I seem to be unable to ever find them, let alone a good example.

There seems to be a disproportionate amount of 145.022-69 models on sale compared to the 71s considering how short the production is.
And the vast majority of the 145.022-71 I see are from the 70s, super rare to be from the 80s.
And the 3590.50 are almost never from the 80s as well, but fair given it was mainly produced in the 90s.

Just wondering if others see this trend too.

The issue is you can't really know it's exact production year without an extract of the archives from Omega.

a 145.022-71 should never be from the 80's. Late 80's you should be looking for a 3590.50 as you mentioned, or 145.0022. But finding one with an extract that proves it before you buy may indeed be a tough task. Patience is all I can suggest on that, unless you're willing to guess/risk it on a S/N close enough to one you know to be from the same year.

Or get one in full set haha.

Yea the 145.0022. I think it was made up to 1988, followed by 3590.50.
From online sources the serial range for 1988 is around the 475MM region.

Been waiting for a long time. Saw one in Tokyo, but the condition wasn't good enough.

True. Even then, I think the papers, if they're trusted to be original at all, only state the sale date. Probably close enough, but sometimes these watch can have a significant gap between their actual manufacture and sale. Possibly a few years even (at least that's thought to be true for some 70's models which is more my forte). Probably close enough for you, but it highlights the semantics of trying to find a 'birth year' watch... The manufacture of parts, the assembly of the total watch, and the sale could have all happened in different years. So maybe you just pick your poison and call it close enough.

I haven't looked super hard, but I keep my eye open for '89 era (my b/y). I think I've seen one in the last 2-3 years which had an extract. It was in decent shape from my memory, but I wasn't looking to buy and I don't care that much about birth year watches, for the same reason I mentioned above. It's kinda semantics.

Yea I tend to go for the year of birth of the watch, so it'll be by serial and not year sold. I'm pretty much covered on the modern speedies and since I can't afford a 2998 so here I am.

The irony is that by the time you find the perfect birth year unicorn, you probably can 😀. Haha. Good luck.