Forgive me; I was out of town for an August vacation. Even OF isn't as much fun as hiking and eating in Big Sur. I'm a lucky person.
I appreciate everybody's comments and thought I'd offer a few last musings of my own. Feel free to ignore, of course.
It's very hard to find reliable information on the value of an item if you're not a Collector, as I'm not. (I capitalize the C advisedly. I have a handful of watches, many of which have particular meaning to me, but I don't keep up with the online boards or with the market, and I don't "invest" in watches — as I know most of you don't either. So I don't consider myself a collector of watches. Or at least not a Collector.)
I do have a fancy turntable and a large LP collection; the LPs are easily worth six figures. I've bought every one of them myself, all around the US and other countries too. I have a very rare early pressing of a Miles Davis album that I found for $15, and a lot of similar stories. Hey, I bought a lot of stuff in the 1990s, when everybody was dumping their vinyl.
LPs are like watches in one regard: They have
intrinsic value, in addition to just being objects. You really can't do anything with a Hummel figurine or a Beanie Baby except look at it, but an LP has a utilitarian value as well. It glorious music on it, as a watch has the intrinsic and important duty of telling the time. An LP that may be "worth" $50 could sell for three or four times that amount, if a person has been looking for years to complete a set, to replace a girlfriend's copy that he trashed when he rolled a blunt on it, or to give to a new partner or even an old spouse who likes an obscure band from their teenage years.
In the same sense, my priorities, and my sense of value of a particular watch, may be very different from those of the Collectors here.
I do know how to do Boolean Google searches, and I'm pretty good at soaking up information (read: obsessive) when I go hunting. But as a non-Collector, I was seeking a
very specific piece. And I can say confidently that the watch I bought is probably much rarer than you think, because you've probably seen a thousand
almost like it, but not quite. I wanted the exact one I've found — 12/3/6/9 numerals, no date, no pie-pan coloring, automatic movement. (I might have compromised on a manual-winder — thanks to the fellow who suggested that — but that's the only place I think I would have done so.) I've seen every 1950s Seamaster advertised online, here, as well as at Rolex Forums, Chrono24, WatchUSeek, and eBay, and some other sites too. By my figuring, that's upwards of 3000 1950s Seamasters, and there are maybe 10 that fit the bill. None of them is nearly as clean as the one I bought.
Because I'm not a Collector, my idea of what this watch is "worth" is probably different from yours.
@Dan S said it's worth maybe $600. But my perspective is not the same as Dan's, and I paid far more because I know how hard it is to find this one, and because a dealer or Collector doesn't account for things like sentimental value, time invested, and other intangibles involved in non-Collectors' searches and purposes. I don't think a dealer or Collector
should account for those things. But I do and that's why its value may be higher to me than to you.
Anyway, sorry to go on a bit. I am definitely not meaning to pick any fights, and if anything strikes you that way, please accept my apologies. I really am grateful for those who took the time to contribute their thoughts. I'm happy with the watch, and to me it was a reasonable purchase. May you have nothing but good feelings about yours as well.
