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pdxleaf
··Often mistaken for AI...I am going to take a page out of the Spacefruit and Hansaboy books and make a thread about a vintage Speedmaster auction. I have learned and enjoyed their threads so much that I owe them a thread.
This watch popped up yesterday in an auction I was following. Funny thing was that it wasn't in my initial watch list. I noticed it about an hour before it was set to go off.
I ended up bidding on this only and won. There were a couple of other watches including Ed Whites that had low initial bids but were in bad condition, at least to me. They ended up with multiple bids and went higher than I thought they deserved.
So what attracted me to this watch? Would you have agreed with my final conclusion?
Reference, condition, originality, price. I recognized this as a 145.022-68 transitional that was relatively inexpensive. (I sold one, and have been looking to replace it. It is one of the most intriguing Speedmasters to me so always capturesmy attention.) It had what appeared to be all the correct parts, the DON bezel, the 1039 bracelet, AML, long indexes/indicies, flat chrono hand. What I couldn't see was the caseback, the all important Reference number inside the caseback or the movement with serial number. For those, i had to trust the condition report. (First thing I'm doing when it shows up is taking off the caseback.)
Originally looked correct so it came down to condition. The condition report said the movement looked untouched. Hopefully that is true, but they did put it in writing. The caseback is supposed to be very good, although I can see slippage marks on the notches when looking up close. Fortunately, they had good high res photos.
The condition report said the bracelet fits an 8 inch wrist, which suggests most links are present. There were minimal scratches on the clasp. Bracelet looks very good.
The bezel looks great, with only two small dings. It is slightly towards the edge, but not as bad as some and typical of the off center. It's one of the nicest bezels I will have had. I'd venture an excellent bezel.
The case is unpolished. Yes, I will say unpolished, however unlikely. Looking at the sharp edges, I can't see any evidence of an older polish. Based on the overall condotion, i would venture to say this could have been a watch pulled from a drawer by a family member and auctioned off. There's no one saying that is where it came from, but that's the condition I think one would be like. An excellent case, regardless.
The hardest part, the dial and hands. The hands have a little paint loss at the center and a bit of rust started. But I didn't see any signs of repaint or touching up.
I didn't see any stains or scratches on the dial. There's a couple light spots in the pictures that could be dust or on the crystal that will need looking at, but nothing to stop a purchase.
Now for the million dollar question, the lume. The color is nice, but is it too nice, as in altered? I don't think so, because there is variety around the dial, particularly between the top of the dial and the bottom. This could be the camera, off course. But the lume near the top is a bit lighter with more yellow showing.
The biggest issue is the condition of the lume itself. They are puffy and globs are in some places. This is often the case with relume. I looked at the edges and the lume is within the index and many have shrunk, shrinkage is a good sign of age. What's more, i didn't see any overlap of what would be paint on top of old lume. The puffiness and globs do show up on vintage pieces, like 145.012s that came before this. I have seen some rounding of lume in 145.022-68s but nothing as globby as this one. I decided that this is original lume, based mostly on the shrinkage and variety in texture and color. This is probably where there may be the most disagreement. It's also the main benefit of this thread as an exercise, to look at this same information and determine for yourself whether or not you would have bought it.
Here are the pics and information I had. Draw your own conclusions. You have one hour 😀
This watch popped up yesterday in an auction I was following. Funny thing was that it wasn't in my initial watch list. I noticed it about an hour before it was set to go off.
I ended up bidding on this only and won. There were a couple of other watches including Ed Whites that had low initial bids but were in bad condition, at least to me. They ended up with multiple bids and went higher than I thought they deserved.
So what attracted me to this watch? Would you have agreed with my final conclusion?
Reference, condition, originality, price. I recognized this as a 145.022-68 transitional that was relatively inexpensive. (I sold one, and have been looking to replace it. It is one of the most intriguing Speedmasters to me so always capturesmy attention.) It had what appeared to be all the correct parts, the DON bezel, the 1039 bracelet, AML, long indexes/indicies, flat chrono hand. What I couldn't see was the caseback, the all important Reference number inside the caseback or the movement with serial number. For those, i had to trust the condition report. (First thing I'm doing when it shows up is taking off the caseback.)
Originally looked correct so it came down to condition. The condition report said the movement looked untouched. Hopefully that is true, but they did put it in writing. The caseback is supposed to be very good, although I can see slippage marks on the notches when looking up close. Fortunately, they had good high res photos.
The condition report said the bracelet fits an 8 inch wrist, which suggests most links are present. There were minimal scratches on the clasp. Bracelet looks very good.
The bezel looks great, with only two small dings. It is slightly towards the edge, but not as bad as some and typical of the off center. It's one of the nicest bezels I will have had. I'd venture an excellent bezel.
The case is unpolished. Yes, I will say unpolished, however unlikely. Looking at the sharp edges, I can't see any evidence of an older polish. Based on the overall condotion, i would venture to say this could have been a watch pulled from a drawer by a family member and auctioned off. There's no one saying that is where it came from, but that's the condition I think one would be like. An excellent case, regardless.
The hardest part, the dial and hands. The hands have a little paint loss at the center and a bit of rust started. But I didn't see any signs of repaint or touching up.
I didn't see any stains or scratches on the dial. There's a couple light spots in the pictures that could be dust or on the crystal that will need looking at, but nothing to stop a purchase.
Now for the million dollar question, the lume. The color is nice, but is it too nice, as in altered? I don't think so, because there is variety around the dial, particularly between the top of the dial and the bottom. This could be the camera, off course. But the lume near the top is a bit lighter with more yellow showing.
The biggest issue is the condition of the lume itself. They are puffy and globs are in some places. This is often the case with relume. I looked at the edges and the lume is within the index and many have shrunk, shrinkage is a good sign of age. What's more, i didn't see any overlap of what would be paint on top of old lume. The puffiness and globs do show up on vintage pieces, like 145.012s that came before this. I have seen some rounding of lume in 145.022-68s but nothing as globby as this one. I decided that this is original lume, based mostly on the shrinkage and variety in texture and color. This is probably where there may be the most disagreement. It's also the main benefit of this thread as an exercise, to look at this same information and determine for yourself whether or not you would have bought it.
Here are the pics and information I had. Draw your own conclusions. You have one hour 😀
