Significance of the Dial

You said snowflake?

They say no two are alike indeed. But need a microscope to see.

Comparing across brands have many variables. Difficult to analyze.

What is interesting about the speedmasters subject of this post is that the variants are essentially the same save for the dials. So only one variable. Yet different valuations. So it really is the dial and its provenance that drive the value.

^ my comment on the above will be off topic but i personally prefer the RB GMT to the SS versions.

Well if youre right, then we are in the minority it seems.

^ to bring it back to topic, in the case of the GMTs, the metal used is the variable and it does have direct impact on the value. In addition to the colors of the bezel.

Whereas the thesis i was putting forward concerns the value driven by just the difference in the dial.

I do often wonder if many of the Speedmaster LEs of the last decade would have the value they currently do (despite their rarer dials) had the snoopy not been so in demand and command such a high value on the secondary market. I think this was one of a number of events and other factors around the mid 10’s which led to this idea of watches being investments and there being the potential for large returns for picking rare examples, and thus helping some watches to increase or hold value (many overvalued in my opinion) in a way they would have unlikely done before.

I always think back to the Alaska project LE, they could be had for £3,000 back in 2012, there was one sold on this forum for $4,000. Looking at the changes in prices on the sales here and on chrono 24 (as a broad metric of sold prices), the values shot up not long after the snoopy started commanding such high prices. I can’t think of many reasons why this would be the case (although I’m sure that isn’t the only one)

But then again, I remember turning down a snoopy offered to me when they were £10k saying “no one can be buying it at that price, it’ll be worth half as much in a year”, so what do I know!