Justintime is a true gentleman and his response was the most honest and straight forward that I have seen with no attitude or excuses, and for that I highly applaud you, I wish you the best of luck in this restoration project, I sincerely hope all goes smooth and cannot wait to see the end result. To be clear my comment was only to express an observation and nothing more than that, as I was just surprised at the final price, but I do wish him great success in this project. Thumbs up all the way around for you sir! Good Luck!

 

Will be an interesting moment seeing if it's a 5000 dollar pile of rust inside for sure. That will be a moment I may not share with my wife!
However I can't be too hard on myself as am probably not the first (or last) enthusiast that has overbid for this kind of a watch on eBay. It was impulsive but when I look at the slowly rising market and I keep thinking about the rolex market too where it seems a bit more acceptable to have the odd service part on an older watch (I saw a double Red Sea dweller this week for 11k usd with service dial) and since the Omegas that many of us like are restricted to one range ie Speedmasters from the 50/60s and they are getting going to get tougher each year etc etc ....then I see that as the years progress we will all have to either sell our houses to afford the best examples or just become less picky and pay more for less so to speak...I hope it's an 002 I have the alpha hands at the ready (thanks dsio) and then it's a case of hoping movement is right and if not have to find another one day and hope prices catch up to what I spend...all a learning curve

 

Thanks for the info - still learning!

 

there seems to be to me too much focus on the price. It's high, yes. But not insane.

price is not the main issue with speedmasters of this vintage. It's not the movements. It is finding one that looks attractive, or can look good. When you want it!

For me, it's the dial, the case, the bezel and hands, in that order. The movement, as long as the number bridge is present and correct, is irrelevant. For every period correct dial I find, I find 10 or 15 movements. Of the dials i find, one out of five is worth buying. Vintage hands are also a much underestimated problem to find.

At the end of the day, it's just money. What I mean is, in a few years time I expect prices to be much stronger, as watches are removed from the market to collections. It's already happening. Trying to find a more interesting 003 than the op watch could be hard. Or look at it another way. What was a realistic price? 3000? I see many hands going up to buy it for that. 4000? I still know more than one person who would buy it for that. So, by how much could we say it is overpriced? 1500? 1000? 700? 500? The fact is, the buyer has the watch. Those who want one but say it's too expensive, they are sitting around giving out advice. This is a rising market. Sometimes to buy, you have to set the pace.

True, there are running 003's out there for $5000-6000, even more, but are they as interesting? Not really. And clearly the market agrees, because on this watch there was an underbidder.

i am very keen to see how it turns out!

 

And as if by magic this appears to underline my point, that there is not much put there that's any good.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/390899604448?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2648&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:ITPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network

$16,000 for a poor restoration of a 105.003

 

All good points and very logical!

 

All valid points to think on. Certainly.
One's good sense may be another's insanity, far as these things go it seems.

 

But still, I'm just gobsmacked

 

You are right !

I did not notice the short indices in the photo, thank you for pointing it out.

I do not know where this dial, (Short indices, AML, Non Pro) comes from as I dont think this configuration was on any factory built new watch.
See here for the full confession of my oversight:
http://www.speedmaster101.com/105-003-page-updated/

I wonder where these dials come from?

 

Therein lies the question....I have one too:]

 

I treat your website as my 101 textbook and did not know you did not know .

Is this dial not mentioned in the bible?

 

I saw the same auction and asked the seller to provide pics of the movement and the inside of the case back cover. The response I got was sort of comical, something to the effect of he wouldn't begin to know how to do that...

 

I'd made an offer on this watch that was turned down. Seller then came back and counteroffered 2000 pounds. There are several things that I didn't like about that watch to warrant that price, so I passed. When I check in on the auction this morning, I noticed that the auction had ended. I guess that a successful deal had been struck...

 

No it is not.

There is a "Professional" version with AML and short indices, that is not attributed to a reference, just "Fitted in 1960's and 70's, Very Rare"

 

TNTwatch said ↑
I treat your website as my 101 textbook and did not know you did not know .

Is this dial not mentioned in the bible?
No it is not.

There is a "Professional" version with AML and short indices, that is not attributed to a reference, just "Fitted in 1960's and 70's, Very Rare"********


yes, it is very rare and it is a factory dial. I had a look at the back of these dials and the oxidation on the back shows clearly, that these are no reprints. I bought 4 of these over the years. all 003 references. if I remember correctly, I had 2 excerpts requested from the factory and both came up with sold to Peru. there is a long connection between Biel und Peru. see the FAP issued Speedmasters and the Rail/Flightmasters. Peruvian military started buying from Biel in 1958.then there are the later A.M marked dials. printed by the factory. my guess is, that they refer to the Andean Motor Club ( Andes motor challenge). there is a long history with swiss watchfactories and south American /African customers getting phased out/radium fitted dials after the cut off date......just the manufacturer using up old stock. like rolex did. I did not keep the factory records; all is just from memory. these were years, when omega and other brands did things as they came along; some not making sense to fussy collectors now. kind regards. achim

 

forgot something. to make things even more confusing: I`ve seen 2 of these dials from the early 60`s without the step ! Using up early speedy dials? more research needed. kind regards. achim

 

"...not making sense to fussy collectors...." !

incisive observation.

or as Jonathan Creek said, " people don't always believe the truth, because it often doesn't make sense"

 

I also had one of these .003 with that dial, it is a first owners watch, but he could not recall if it was serviced in the early 70ties, in combination with the fact that the hand is not correct too and that the movement does belong to a 68 Seamaster,
i come to the conclusion that these are early 70ties service dials

 

Here is the link to my thread with more close up pictures of the dial

 

Here are some pics of the dial only