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
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!
