New to me 145.022-69 Speedmaster Professional

Hello OF,

I suppose this is essentially my intro - I’ve been on here for a little while and have been posting very, very sparingly, mostly trying to absorb and observe. I very recently acquired this 145.022-69 from the big auction site, which for me posed a significant risk. More on that in a bit.

A bit of background - I’ve always been into watches, and have been after a Speedmaster Professional on and off for about 10-12 years. After returning to the search after many years off in 2019, well, I was surprised to say the least where the market had gone! It was time to act now before things got much worse! So here is where my roughly two year long concentrated search has ended, the end goal being a watch that I would enjoy and be able to wear for the most part, daily. I ended up going vintage because I wanted something with “character” and I wasn’t hung up on 321, step-dial, etc, so my net was cast broadly. Further, the release of the 3861 Speedmaster only served to muddy the waters a bit for me and in truth I struggled between going 3861, 1861, or vintage for awhile.

This is my first Omega, really, my first “nice” watch, and as a beginner I feel like I haven’t been able to really contribute here. Perhaps documenting my watch and my experience may come in handy in some way to someone. Also, I felt like I armed myself with all the knowledge that I have gained up to this point, but of course that isn’t anywhere in the ballpark of the experts here at OF. So please feel free to comment, critique, point out red flags, call me names, etc. Yes, perhaps it is too late to do something about minor issues, but if there is anything catastrophically wrong with the watch that I have obviously missed then I probably should have some recourse.

The buying experience. I purchased from eBay, from a seller that specialized in watches but that had a lowish feedback rating. Fortunately, I can say now that things ended up fine, but I had hoped that the protections offered by PayPal (eBay), the authentication (yes, I read where this had gone wrong), and eBay itself, would offer a bit of a safety net. I actually had a good experience in that the seller communicated well and shipped quickly. In short, the buying experience itself was rather painless, never mind that I didn’t get a wink of sleep after my offer was accepted. On this subject; I do find that respectable “brick-and-mortar”, or smaller, independent sellers don’t always have a stellar online selling reputation for one reason or another. Perhaps e-commerce is neither their focus nor expertise and just prefer to focus on watchmaking and dealing with customers in person.

On to the watch.
-- Late 145.022-69 with DNN bezel, etched/smooth caseback, and movement number in the 31,3XX,XXX range, and stepped dial
-- Watch isn’t without a couple minor dings and scratches but overall happy with the condition. It does not appear to be heavily polished (realize that this could be a trigger word), but I find both brushed and higher polished on the case.
-- Interestingly, there’s a numerical engraving on the caseback “26331” and I have no idea what this represents

My concerns/minor niggles:
-- Lume plots looked a little puffy in pictures and up close, but I saw documented in other examples that this likely is still the original factory applied lume. It glows greenish for about 10-15 seconds then goes very faint when stimulated with light. This was my biggest worry
-- Crystal doesn’t seem to have the Omega logo engraving
--Reset pusher button is a bit “out there”
--Chrono seconds hand has a bit of a periodic “stutter” which is barely noticeable
--Caseback seal is gone

The watch is keeping good time, but I will be giving it in for service to ameliorate the last few bullets (and generally because it’s a good idea). I’ll probably look into getting the hand lume stabilized, although I don’t see any debris on the dial.

Overall, the condition of the watch components on their own seem to be consistent - it has an overall used, but cared-for vibe which for me is ideal because I wasn’t after a safe-queen nor a beater. Yes, there are scratches, there is damage to the bezel insert, but on wrist as a practical daily wear this doesn’t bother me in the least. I would have preferred to see the watch in person before buying and admit that I was uncomfortable with the notion of buying from pictures and (minimal) description only. I kept reading about “buy the seller” - for me I had a feeling that this might be a nice watch and just decided to go for it despite the feedback rating.

Okay, enough drivel, and onto some pictures! I’ll have to work on my watch photography, so in the meantime, most of these pictures are from the seller.

Lastly, I would like to acknowledge in general the expertise here at OF as a great resource for a newbie like me and a couple members in particular. Obviously @Spacefruit - his website was an invaluable resource over and over during this process, and @JwRosenthal for advice and words of encouragement earlier this year.

Thanks for reading this and I look forward to talking Omega and watches in general!

Nice looking watch, but without knowing how much you paid it's difficult to add a more meaningful comment.

Let me take a stab at a more meaningful comment than Dennis'...

The watch looks attractive and definitely worth wearing. Dial looks great to me. Given the gunk on outside and inside I would service it if this is your keeper.

However, the concern is the lining up of the seahorse caseback and the DNN bezel. I am pretty sure that something has to change here. The 31.3 mil Speedmasters from my experience are a bit of wildcards. Some have come as 69's and 71's and sometimes (maybe even contestably so) as 74's.

My concern is the pre-moon caseback and the DNN bezel. I can be mistaken that there are instances that the pre-moon caseback can line up with a DNN and that serial number but I don't recall that being the call. The easiest fix is to find a DON insert, but again depending on where in the 313 range your watch falls the DON/DNN may need to follow that.

Again, I leave to someone else to comment. I feel like @Foo2rama has weighed in on these 145022s in the past. And again - I may be mistaken to some degree.

Congratulations on your purchase

Thanks for your comment. Sure, I understand that putting a price on the watch adds a bit to the context but I feel like it's not necessary to discuss the watch in a physical sense. I'm a bit wary of adding that info here even though it would probably serve as a good data point. I'll probably update the original post.

Thanks! Yes, that's something to address in the service for sure but I wasn't aware that they could be tightened -- good to know!

Thank you. Yes, this aftermarket crystal is a bit flat -- and that's an interesting comment on making the step pop. This the first step dial I've experienced (other than the new 3861) in the metal and the effect is subtle. Having that more pronounced would be cool. There doesn't seem to be as much of that fun distortion (in my limited experience) that the OEM Omega hesalite provides.

Thank you very much for your observation. I had wondered if such a late serial number should be in the realm of a different caseback as well...maybe a straight writing -69? In fact, my non-rigorous internet analysis of movement serial numbers only found one source (speedmaster101.com) that listed my serial number in the -69 model range. There does seem to be an overlap of the -71 and -74 as well as you stated.

I would think that the 313 serial being later would mean a DNN bezel, but then again I see where the question of the seahorse caseback being coupled with those two facts comes from. I would question a DON with this serial, but I defer to other's experience on this one.

There are lots of possibilities here I suppose (watch is original "wildcard", caseback swap, bezel swap, movement swap, etc). For me the condition of these components seems consistent, and the parts look original to my eyes, so I'm not terribly worried. It seems that Omega made a lot of -69s and the model experienced several changes (DON to DNN, seahorse to SW casebacks) so perhaps this example is caught somewhere in between those transitions.

Really appreciate this analysis and would love to hear more on people's experiences.

Thanks!

Nobody talked about it, guess it's an accepted variation, but I've never seen this caseback's engraving shape 📖

Very nice Speedmaster anyway 👍

Firstly, congrats on your purchase and welcome to the club. The 145.045 69 is a great option for someone who wants to buy a Speedmaster Pro. Each to their own but to me a SP has to have a 321 or 861 movement and the ‘69 is a nice pre-moon option without the price tag of an earlier model. The dial on yours looks in great shape and to me the markers and hands all look original. The hippocampus is also nicely visible on the caseback and the case looks to have strong lines.

It’s probably covered elsewhere on the forum but would be interested to hear your experience with the eBay authentication service.

congratulations

this is almost the variant i have been looking for years without success

69, 861, step dial, premoon case back, but DON bezel

closest one i was able to source was 328 serial, 71, that became moon caseback

Thank you, and thanks for sharing your experience!

Thanks. I feel your pain -- it's a difficult task to find "the one" where things like cost, condition, originality, and features all line up at the same time.

Thank you -- yes, the dial was the main selling point for me as well.

Sure, and I'll add pics soon as well, but for me I'd say I had a good experience with the authentication. From my perspective, it was just that the watch had a stop along the way at the authenticator's during shipping (it took roughly 24 hours to turn around and ship it back out again). When it arrived, it was in a tamper-proof outer cardboard box. Inside, was eBay's blue watch box along with a tamper-proof sticker across the two parts of the strap and caseback that says something to the order of "no returns if broken". A nice touch but a bit funny as well since...well I'll just show the pictures. Included with the box was an authentication card with the watch details (funny that they added the caseback engraving to the serial number) and a card explaining the authentication. It looks like any seller packaging was discarded and there were no "box and papers" originally anyway. I imagine eBay would keep any original manufacturer packaging and documentation and included them.

TBH I was a bit nervous about the authentication. I had read stories here on OF of a scenario where it did not go so well. Imagine a scenario where, for example, the authenticator failed to notice an issue (e.g. aftermarket bezel) that wasn't totally obvious from the auction pics. If I had discovered this once having the watch in my hands then would it be me against eBay and the authenticators? It would almost feel like they would have a case built up against me because of that fact that it was authenticated. Fortunately this wasn't the case, and on some level I was happy to have it because seller feedback was low.

Hmmm, interesting point you bring up. I suppose that this would make for an interesting....................case study 😉

Anyway, it seems that there may have been different engraving versions even on the 145.022-69. There's an article on watchbooksonly.com that discusses this model Speedy and compares casebooks found on DON vs 220 vs DNN bezels:
https://www.watchbooksonly.com/articles/watch-reviews/understanding-the-145022-69-reference/

At a quick glance, there do seem to be some subtle differences (DON has different engraving of the Ω and the text on the later bezels looks "stenciled", brushing is radial, etc.) but that DON example does look like it's had a polish or two.