Yes, definitely a possibility.
The main question at this point is why then would most resources claim this serial as in the “correct” range for a 74.
Well the serial could have been correct for a '74 I guess but not the date of production. The date of production and the serial number don't always correlate well.
Right, so it means that when my movement was produced, they were still 3 or more years away from producing a movements with even earlier serial numbers. If that is indeed the situation, then that has an impact on how we date any of these watches. More or less, you can’t assume that a movement is correct to the watch without an extract, then.
No, I think all these movements in this serial range were made prior to '71. Then some of these movements were built into '74 watches later on. The movements were not used chronologically.... The date of production is the date of the production of the final complete watch. The bit about not knowing whether the movement is correct for the watch without an extract I agree with. Even with an extract you can't be sure if all parts have been replaced with period-correct parts.
It would tell us if it was produced in '71, but not shipped until '75/'76. He mentioned a possible explanation as, "there was an enormous production in 1971, but sales could not follow and thus many remained at the factory. For some reasons the casebacks might have been updated before shipping..."
why would the dial have also been swapped prior to shipping?
I know we are all trying to be polite here but isn't the most likely explanation that the watch is a Franken to a greater or lesser degree?
In order to make them look like a ‘74 so that they could sell them as the new model instead of them sitting unsold or selling a then-outdated model
In order to keep my composure, I will leave this thread now...
Just to complement:
In our records, we have identified a lot of 145.022-69, -71 and -74 in the 31 million range. We had the opportunity to check DELIVERY date for some of them:
69x 145.022-69 -> all delivered between 1971 and 1973
31x 145.022-71 -> all delivered between 1971 and 1974
50x 145.022-74 -> all delivered between 1975 and 1976
Despite s/n in the same range, there is a clear correlation between caseback and delivery date. We have no proven explanation why the '74 have received the later dial.
