any other prototypes out there to be discover?
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Love these prototype claims. Weasel-like declaratives such as "almost certainly" and "probably" does provenance not make!

 

There are hundreds of prototypes out there still waiting to surface and a good few do every year. Back in the day there simply wasn't the regulation around these and many were made as almost dealer samples so made their way out of the factory, for those that didn't they were simply taken home by the team. I bought 1/5 calibre 1500 Elephants directly from the project director for the Marine Chronometer (John Othenin-Girrard), he simply took it home when they had finished with them, there just wasn't any value in prototypes as effectively they were products that were deemed not good enough to go to production.

I own quite a few prototype Omegas, this one is an interesting one as non of those combinations have ever been seen before and I cannot find any reference to it recorded in journals. The source (as you no doubt know) is watchco and this is likely to be coming from the owner's private collection.



I think the price is very steep and would see this as a more £2000 - £4000 watch (especially without any extract or evidence, which is notoriously difficult to get for prototype............. unless of course you are Christies...........................) but it is a very interesting specimen and with the insanity around Speedmasters and the 11003 Radial prototype and Speedmaster 1040 prototype in Tissot Navigator case going through Christies 50 for such huge sums this does seem to be somewhat of a bargain in the current climate around anything Speedmaster related




This NASA issued 1045 Radial prototype I can clearly see the value in simply because of the provenance around the piece and even if there were no extract (which there isn't for a lot of the NASA issued watch but surprisingly was for the Christies examples) would still be worth a mint due to the star made prototype case and radial dial.

The challenge around the example for sale is that the case back is from a standard production 1045 Speedmaster Chronograph, the dial is without doubt a prototype and on the basis that the last 1045 Radial dial (dial only same as the one pictured above from the Christies sale) that watchco sold a couple of years back went for £4000 on its own this seems like a good benchmark.

The additional challenge and bigger concern around the eBay example is that there are dozens of brands who used the 1045 movement so although I think it is complete plausible the this could well be as it left the factory fundamentally the top case could be one used by another manufacturer. We have seen examples of this recently, the Christies 1045 pictured below realised $25,000



Whilst is came with an extract (god only knows how Christies managed to 'extract' that info) fundamentally the watch is a proto 1045 movement in a production Tissot Navigator chronograph case yet because it hold the badge of proto, the extract and the unique number on the main plate and the case is worth 10X what a normal 1045 is worth and 20X what a Tissot Navigator 1045 is worth

The eBay watch clearly has a prototype dial (rare and valuable in itself) and prototype movement (but fundamentally is is just a production movement with a prototype serial, I see nothing unique in the movement design that sets it apart, much like the prototype from Christies) but the case has no clear Omega lineage and the case back is from a production variant.

IMHO knowing the vendor very well it is a completely legitimate prototype and following on from the Christies auction is well within the realms of what the christies watches achieved but IMHO the hype around Christies over inflated the prices and caused a frenzy (lets remember the dog of a 2915-1 which went for £100K) so with that in mind I would say the bay watch is perhaps overpriced at the current full asking price, but who know maybe they will take an offer or maybe someone with very deep pockets who 'must have it' (one of the Hodinkee squad) will dip in to their coin purse and pay the full asking price

 

wow !! I have seen one of these in a small vintage watch shop in Biel in 1993, when I visited the Omega Museum. at the time I was not really into that case shape. I liked the dial colour; it reminds me now at the gray/blueish dials from the speedmaster, that surfaced here a few months earlier. kind regards. achim

 

Achim, I suspect that's probably where it came from and may even be one in the same watch. I'm there with you, frankly I'm not overly keen on the design. I was offered a 1045 radial 11003 last year for a good price (still north of £10K) and declined because whilst I love the NASA test link and inevitably the value would rise I don't actually like the design, layout or how it wears

I'd say my gut tells me this is legit, watchco over the years had some amazing, truly amazing prototype omega stuff )sadly now all long gone) and this is perhaps one of the last of their prototype vintage hoard

A cool piece

 

Yep, I'm aware of the vendor, his long-term interest and association with Omega and his previous access to vast inventories of Omega parts and stock.

I spoke to Marco Richon at length about prototypes some years ago, and he pretty well confirmed, to a point, what you say about them "going home". He intimated that rather than Omega permitting prototypes to be distributed freely amongst staff that they were basically "stolen". He claimed at the time that Omega could legitimately say that prototypes were its property and could basically demand their return on the occasions when they surfaced.

Marco also said that it depended on who was running the project whether or not prototypes were strictly controlled. He said Pierre Moinat, for example, was strict to the point of obsession about nothing leaving the Creations Department.

But, my point really was about provenance and providing documentation that the watch, in its entirety, was indeed a prototype built for comparison and assessment, and not an assemblage of different parts that various suppliers to Omega provided as examples. For instance, Gerald Genta told me in a series of exchanges we had that dial manufacturers, suppliers of bracelets and case manufacturers would provide Omega Creations with numerous iterations of dials, cases and bracelets in order for a panel to make an ultimate decision. My fear, and indeed suspicion, is that many more of these loose examples presented for inspection have ultimately found themselves in marriages ordained by others.

As in any other collectible item, like art, antiques, collectibles of every kind, the value of an item isn't really established until it can be proved, or agreed upon by a panel of experts, that the object is what it says it is. My point is that the item in question doesn't do that....by a long shot.

On reflection, I think it would be more precise to describe many of what are described as prototypes as manufacturers samples. My understanding of a prototype is that it is a workable example of what's originally intended, ready for further development and refinement, whereas samples fit neatly into the practice I outlined above, a practice that only abated with the in-house design of the Dynamic and later, the Manhattan Constellation.

Regards

Desmond

 

"Prototype" is a term that has in turn, raised amusement in one famous thread, and awe in some others.

While I would trust MA to represent the watch as he found it, it all comes down to the point raised by Desmond.

Provenance.

Due to the way these particular watches were managed/handled many years ago, provenance is unlikely to surface.

Therefore, this example remains to me to be nothing more than an interesting if overpriced example of something that could have been.

 

The noob tax will be high...............

 

Desmond

I'm in complete agreement with you, fundamentally this could easily be a marriage of rare and unobtainable parts as opposed to a factory prototype but it could also easily be exactly what it as descirbed and knowing MA well like a lot of us do would think that it is as he found it! as My alarm bells also ring when I read things like 'probably and poasibly' in sales posts but then I guess without certaint through extract it is sensible to air on the side of caution.

I too have had lengthy debates with the new museum team around the legitimacy or lack of around many omega prototypes. If I gave an example, my calibre 1500 elephant is allegedly 1/5 made but I think that is more that there are more than five but only five known to still exist. I own one, the museum have three and two more are on display elsewhere. Everything about the watch is production ready and it is far more credible that it was fundamentally ready for production in the final stages of prototyping when they found a more economical version of the movement (1510) which didn't require new batteries every month. This for me is a true prototype, it was never distributed and never released and shares not one single component with the prosecution watch (1510,1511)

By contrast my 1511 prototype with round dial (same as John Wallis) is one of only two known and whilst bearing prototype serials and clearly having a prototype case and dial, it was a test watch for dealers to test the market. There for really that is a manufacturer sample

As you say Desmond validating prototypes is not easy. I own a radial/ star case Speedsonic, 12-16 were sent to NASA in 1978, when I saw three listed in the inventory of the Christies 1045 NASA issued radial dial documentation I got my hopes up but further enquiries revealed that they only have records of 4 and not all of them.

Omegas extracts and museum support is excellent but the archive (IMHO) has more holes than a Swiss cheese (as we all know from the 2915/2998 etc extracts) so logic dictates that the prototypes and market test pieces were even less regulated.

 

Completely agree Jim, I see all of my prototypes as just that examples of what could have been but what makes them special for me is that in most cases no one else I know owns one. All with the exception of the 1500, which really is something quite important (for me as a quartz collector) because of the uniqueness of the movement

 

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For sale no reserve.

 

Serial number is odd, 04064323.