I sit on a beach with my hard drive, no watches, and I look through some of my photos from 2015. By no means highlights, these are a few interesting things that came my way in 2015....(I think it was all 2015!) This set of three is always nice to hang out with, and a spectacular display of dial contrasts. Strictly speaking only the blue arrived in 2015, and was bought in 2014 December Bonhams: A blue 105.003 that I fought of the Museum for, a Brown dial from Italy that now seems spectacularly cheap, and an "ordinary" 2998. Though no 2998 is ordinary anymore. This 2998 bellow arrived from a respected member, and I debate with myself if there has been some historical reluming going on - also lollipops are always open to debate with originality issues. They can influence the price so much, and they are just a little tiny bit of metal....Sometimes I think this reluming could have happened a very long time ago. Anyway the lovely dial colour and the lollipop won me over in spite of the worries. Check the over-spill on the edge of the circle. Also the granular nature and black spotted lume. I happened across a second blue. This time a 2998, how could I refuse? Mrs Fruit showed an interest so when the British made Omega mesh arrived she grabbed it: Traveling as I do, I found myself in Chicago without the means to press on a bezel. For only $15 or so I purchased a press. Annoyingly it has a raised pin, reducing clearance and making it very hard to line up. So another $15 and I got one with a larger clearance. Here is a photo so anyone buying one does not have to make the same mistake: I bought a pile of parts, and hidden under the mainplate of a 321 movement, as a friend spotted a pair of Alpha hands poking out in the ebay photo. We all want these hands for our 2998's, but what arrived were 2915-3 hands. These are incredibly rare, but I suspect as the demand might be much more limited, so actually worth less than a pair of 2998 triangle lume hands. You can see here clearly the hour hand is much longer and nearly touches the hour indices. Here is an oddball I had to fight a bit hard for. It is a 1974 speedmaster wearing a 1960's pulsations bezel. These are differentiated from the ones available today by the line running around the bezel separating the numbers from the inner edge. Here is the ebay photo, showing the bezel incorrectly fitted. After the sale the vendor, who was a pawnbroker, wrote to me asking me why I paid so much, and was it the bezel? Of course it was, and it was not sooo much! This bezel is on its way to a 2998 where it belongs. I had the opportunity to fail to capture on film (ok, pixels) Omega's most difficult watch to photograph, the 45th anniversary. This is harvested from many, many frustrating attempts to capture the lovely brown matt dial. This is the best I could do: Finally Mrs Fruit and I had a wonderful time at Christies, hanging out with members of OF and the watches: (No Pictures of OF members, just watches) Happy New Year to you all! More importantly, I wish you all a happy hunt in the coming year and may your Grail elude you. SF
Cool thread ! You seem to have had a nice year overall though ;-) Best wishes to everybody for 2016, let the party begin - now !
Glad you had such a good year William. Many thanks for sharing your expertise through all the informative and entertaining threads on OF and for 101.
A very nice year for you. Really like the blue dial Ed White, don't see one often, if at all. Inspired and armed with a touch more knowledge, looking forward to searching for grails in 2016 with you and the other OF members. May the odds be ever in our favor.
Excellent! That tropical 2998 is awesome! I really must try to add a brown dial Speedy in 2016. My wish list for this year is growing by the day.....
Excellent as always. As a veteran collector who is new to Speedmasters, I cannot thank you enough for sharing all your knowledge and insight. Your teachings make the hunt much more enjoyable!
So that's where all the 2998's went. Save some for the rest of us, will ya! Congrats on a terrific year.
+1 that. Well done fruit, you've set yourself a real challenge for 2016 to top the year you've just had though. Wishing you health and wealth in 2016.
Great post from a member who is very insightful and generous with his info... and of course, great watches - especially the blue dial Ed White! Best wishes for a great '16! Glenn
It'll be very interesting to see where the Speedmaster market goes in 2016. Will it plateau after the significant price rises of the last 6-12 months or will it push on? Personally I think prises will keep rising but perhaps not as much as we saw last year. The reason being that while vintage watches continue to be in vogue, for the average guy, Rolex still seems to be the first port of call. In the last few months three people have spoken to me about getting into vintage watches and all of them were looking at Rolex (although one also mentioned Heuer). While this will have a knock on effect on vintage Omega, it suggests to me that it's still a way away from vintage rolex with the average guy on the street. I certainly plan on adding a couple more this year, but I'll be looking at 2998's, possibly an early 105.012 and a tropical dial, which are towards the sharp end at the minute. As always, the chase is half the fun!!