"New" DO90 Bezel Variants for Omega Speedmaster 2998

Hello OF!
Excited to share a little shake-up our understanding of early Speedmaster Bezels.

I have worked in metrology and various forms of composite digital imaging over the last decade and have now started pointing that knowledge toward the Bezels and Dials of vintage Speedmasters. Recently while working on some new homography tools, I analyzed hundreds of early bezels spanning past auctions, current sales, our favorite books & websites dedicated to the Speedmaster, etc.. -- and I've noticed some interesting variations appearing when focusing on 2998's.

Turns out the Bezel we know as the "B1" appears to be a family of 3 different bezels. (who knows, maybe more to come😀
We have a bit of a naming convention problem here that might cause confusion, so for clarity, I will refer to them as B1 MK1, B1 MK2 & B1 MK3 (B1 MK3 being the later bezel most commonly associated with "B1").

There is of course a gradient of when/where these bezels appear/disappear. If we had a large sample pool of known, untouched examples we could likely see clearer trends, but we are looking at relics of the past all with their own history's, forgotten, misremembered, serviced, improved, unimproved etc..

It is a bit easier to demonstrate and describe these 2 bezels in relation to the most common B1 MK3 bezel.
I'm still putting together and refining a timeline for these bezels, so please take this with a grain of salt for the moment, especially the phase out periods.


B1 MK1

primarily associated with 2998-3 to 2998-4
Transitioning Out from 2998-5 through 2998-6
(typically associated with the Green bezels seen in this range).

-line between 100 & 110 biased toward 100.
-200 biased towards outer edge
-190 biased towards 180.



B1 MK2

primarily associated with 2998-5 to 2998-62
Transitioning Out from 2998-62 through 105.002-62

-line centered between 100 & 110
-200 biased towards outer edge



B1 MK3

primarily associated with 105.002 to 145.022-68
Transitioning Out during 145.022-69

-line centered between 100 & 110
-200 is closer to inner edge.



There are quite a few minute transformations throughout the bezels that I'm tracking and leaving out of this post (Serifs, edge proximity, thickness and additional feature shifts). For now the above key features are the largest tells that can help differentiate them quickly. I am very much still working out details so take this as a first draft. More to come and don't go switching out those early 2998 bezels out with Mk3's 😉


Cheers,
ZWD

Outstanding findings, thanks for sharing ZWD and can’t wait to follow along as more trickles out! 🙏

If I have the samples in hand to image and compare, yes with reasonable confidence. - but i think the reality of remote "authenticating" from low resolution images over the internet is behind us.

Unclear. Knowing the manufacturing process would be helpful to interpret the imaging data, but I have not found anything definitive on that matter yet. If anyone knows any details, please reach out!

*For clarity, the 200 moved inward later on the mk3.

Thank you so much for this valuable and new information.

This is wonderful information. For those asking about repro bezels, I spent a lot of hours reading this thread when I first got into vintage Speedmasters:


I hope the writers of MWO see this thread... would be worthwhile for them to consider prior to the release of the next edition.

Thanks again ZWD!

Absolutely possible. Can't be 100% sure about any of it with limited photos from the net.

The MK3 has certainly been duped to the level of passing a remote overlay test with limited low resolution images. This is why its so important to be able to see something in person. The microscope and modern imaging techniques can reveal quite a lot ( not to mention just being able to literally feel the differences). additionally, Context is key - the bezel frame surface vs the rest of the watch should not be ignored. If one is truly concerned with originality of parts, quite a bit of due diligence is required to feel confident in todays world.

Antiquity is always being reproduced better with the advance of technology. The technology of understanding and comparing the antiquity and its reproductions needs to also rise with it. It's turtles all the way down.

The MK1 and MK2 bezels though are concentrated enough in the 2998's that I feel reasonably confident about their originality at the moment with limited photography.

OF populated some "similar threads" threads below with one titled "DO90 Bezel Comparison on 2998's". over a decade old thread! 😀

In this @Spacefruit shows two 2998's side by side.. Here is a quick comparator image of both aligned to see and compare to the key feature transformations. B1 Mk1 and B1 Mk3 bezels.
in this case the "thicker font" MK1 appears to be the original bezel for the reference.