Hi all, As I am sure some of you must have noticed, a very rare Speedmaster Racing with Meister dial printing has just been sold for a hefty 94.5k USD. Knowing that this must be a really rare bird, as MWO explicitly mentions only one known example and pictures it, showing a slightly different watch... It must be incredibly rare, much rarer than for instance an Ultraman. Provenance is interesting and the watch comes from the original owner. The bezel is obviously service, but at these levels, sourcing a nice DON is not too hefty a premium to pay... https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auc.../reference-145012-speedmaster-red-racing-dial I am of course curious to get your opinions on this watch and secretly wonder; has this Speedmaster Meister Racing stayed in the OF family?
Anyone else notice this strange ghost chrono? I see in the listing each photo has this ghost chrono, but in different places; some odd photo artifact, I guess.
No extract? why would they not get one for this piece... it’s easier to confirm delivery to Meister then the racing part. But I’d take the meister confirmation as good enough personally.
No reference to onen in the sale notice, and I didn't ask. But it seems to have a rock-solid provenance -- single named owner, non WUS, and period pictures. I'd guess it's good
Here is the working/distilled theory as I understand it. First part was proposed by @DB1983 in person and in a video he made, this was also endorsed by someone from the museum. Toward the end of production of the 145.012, perhaps the demand was waning for the old model or Omega wanted to be creative, or felt a need to produce watches with a bit of colour. It would have been a way of having a new model to generate interest without actually having a new model. So the UM, the pro black and the non pro black were produced in similar times, with similar or close movement numbers, toward the end of the production of the 145.012. There is another quirk, in that several black racing’s are without extracts. These have movements that were probably intended for other, slow selling models, and these movements diverted to the “fun” black racing’s. This is known in two examples (so far) both of which have original omega guarantees and traceable history and both show as 18kt cased watches in the archives. This possibility has been confirmed verbally by a member of the museum as a potential explanation - still won’t issue an extract though! The dials are genuinely rare, and the source of them is unclear. The pro version is a different pressing, with smaller subdials. This results in the need for shorter subdial hands. There is speculation regarding the total production numbers for black racing dials. While I think I might have seen or accounted for about eight of each, there may be more out there, as well as loose dials. what I like about these is that it would be very difficult to reproduce (by someone hoping to decieve ) today, especially the pro version with its different size subdials, unlike the Ultraman which simply needs a hand. and you do all spot what kind of chrono some of the black racing’s have.....(so far non pros have the UM length hand) here you can see that, and the sub dial difference.