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Thoughts on this refinished Speedy Mark II (and others!)

johnnylarue
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Unexpected update outta left field!

One of my hard-working algorithms threw this alert at me today:

s-l1600 (2).jpg s-l1600 (1).jpg s-l1600.jpg


It meets very few of my initial criteria, being a racing dial with missing lume in the hands and yellowed chrono hands, a shiny case and a stretched bracelet. HOWEVER, the case still has its sharp lines (and I'm assuming nearly all of its original metal), the dial is in nice condition, and the clincher: I nabbed it for under $1K. 😁

All told, a bit of a gamble, but at that price it becomes very useable currency for a potential trade towards a nicer black dialed version in the future, and a very valid beater I just might learn to love in the meantime. Will follow up with some pics once it's finally in my possession. Fingers crossed!
 
airansun
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I think it’s beautiful! Congratulations!

And you won’t have to have any guilt for wearing it constantly.
 
Nathan1967
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Jammy git!

Looks great - service and a new crystal, it’ll be great.

Well done
 
Tet
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I think you have a cracker there at the price paid. The hands missing lume is easily put right by a good relumer, bracelet can be replaced and aside from that it looks great IMO. Get it serviced and wear the hell out of it.
 
johnnylarue
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Nathan1967 Nathan1967
Jammy git!

Looks great - service and a new crystal, it’ll be great.

Well done
Tet Tet
I think you have a cracker there at the price paid. The hands missing lume is easily put right by a good relumer, bracelet can be replaced and aside from that it looks great IMO. Get it serviced and wear the hell out of it.

Thanks a bunch, fellers! It all happened in a matter of minutes... Killer instinct. 😉

I'll see what my heart has to say about it once I've had a chance to take it for a spin. I'll wear it for a few weeks and if a bond forms I'll sink some cash into it and get it all dolled up. Otherwise I'll likely proffer it up as-is for a trade towards its less flashy (and somewhat less valuable) black-dialed cousin.
Edited:
 
johnnylarue
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By the way, does anyone reading this know if the racing dial version ever came with the “non-fat” hour hand installed on this watch? I’m accustomed to seeing that hour hand type only on the black dialed model.
 
johnnylarue
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To answer my own question:

“When the MKii Racing was introduced, in 1969, the initial batch were fitted with the regular Moonwatch hour & min hands, with the centres coloured black. Later watches were fitted with the more familiar wider hands. In all cases the running secs hand was white with the chrono function hands orange”

Just found the above quote on a different thread from ‘14. I’ve found several pics of MKII’s with all white Moonwatch-style (skinny) hours and minutes hands without the black-painted bases, and there’s certainly nothing to suggest, based on the state of the lume and faded orange in mine, that these hands were ever swapped out.
Perhaps I’ll re-ignite this topic in its own thread when I have the watch in hand...
 
steveb73
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Really interesting thread! Big congrats on the racing dial and the amazing price. Looking forward to some better pics when it arrives!!!
 
johnnylarue
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steveb73 steveb73
Really interesting thread! Big congrats on the racing dial and the amazing price. Looking forward to some better pics when it arrives!!!

Cheers, Steve—it’s been a journey. 😉
 
simonsays
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johnnylarue johnnylarue
To answer my own question:

“When the MKii Racing was introduced, in 1969, the initial batch were fitted with the regular Moonwatch hour & min hands, with the centres coloured black. Later watches were fitted with the more familiar wider hands. In all cases the running secs hand was white with the chrono function hands orange”

Just found the above quote on a different thread from ‘14. I’ve found several pics of MKII’s with all white Moonwatch-style (skinny) hours and minutes hands without the black-painted bases, and there’s certainly nothing to suggest, based on the state of the lume and faded orange in mine, that these hands were ever swapped out.
Perhaps I’ll re-ignite this topic in its own thread when I have the watch in hand...

interesting quote, can you post a link to the thread?
 
P
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johnnylarue johnnylarue
Unexpected update outta left field!

One of my hard-working algorithms threw this alert at me today:

s-l1600 (2).jpg s-l1600 (1).jpg s-l1600.jpg


It meets very few of my initial criteria, being a racing dial with missing lume in the hands and yellowed chrono hands, a shiny case and a stretched bracelet. HOWEVER, the case still has its sharp lines (and I'm assuming nearly all of its original metal), the dial is in nice condition, and the clincher: I nabbed it for under $1K. 😁

All told, a bit of a gamble, but at that price it becomes very useable currency for a potential trade towards a nicer black dialed version in the future, and a very valid beater I just might learn to love in the meantime. Will follow up with some pics once it's finally in my possession. Fingers crossed!

Great buy - well done jumping on that quickly

I'm blaming this thread for me picking my own MkII up earlier this week - very comfortable on the wrist so far (26 hours and counting) and more conspicuous than the flightmaster i've been giving wrist time to lately
 
johnnylarue
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P percymon
Great buy - well done jumping on that quickly

I'm blaming this thread for me picking my own MkII up earlier this week - very comfortable on the wrist so far (26 hours and counting) and more conspicuous than the flightmaster i've been giving wrist time to lately

Always glad to help someone part with their money. But more conspicuous than a Flightmaster, you say? What could be more conspicuous than having a full-size egg timer strapped to your arm? 😁
 
Tet
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johnnylarue johnnylarue
Always glad to help someone part with their money. But more conspicuous than a Flightmaster, you say? What could be more conspicuous than having a full-size egg timer strapped to your arm? 😁

Haha, I'm guessing he meant less. I would do love to own a flighty but the prices are rising and my funds are sinking so not the right combo.

Interesting your findings about the hands, I didn't know that either. Good research there.

I must say I'm missing my MKII, it's away having is chrono hand repainted as it was painted with a beige coloured glossy enamel when I bought it and it's always bothered me(especially the shine), having the hands relumed at the same time as the tritium had turned black and was particularly missing. I'm hoping he can match it to the dial markers which I think are fantastic, we will see.
 
Tet
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septentrio septentrio
I sold one of the purest MKIIs I had ever seen here a while back. In my view, 99% of the watches are refinished.

https://omegaforums.net/threads/1969-omega-speedmaster-mkii-145-014-purist-watch.90976/

While I agree a hell of alt of the MKII cases have been refinished, sadly all to often poorly, I do think often people are a bit quick to shout "it's been refinished". I would say probably more like 70% have been polished or refinished if we were to give it an average, there's still plenty untouched cases around.

Oh and congrats @padders, welcome to the club.
 
Nathan1967
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A thread on polished vs unpolished MkII cases and what to look for might be educational and interesting!

Personally, I’d feel very brave to state a Mk2 Case was completely unpolished. I can spot a badly polished case, that’s very straightforward. But I find differentiating between an aged case that has been very well polished at some point and an unpolished Case a tough one. I’ve been led to believe that the tell tale is at the Lugs - there should be a fair bit of metal by right angle at the top of the lug space. Is the watch below unpolished? I don’t know! But to my eyes it looks like a good Mk2 Case should look.

422CB9B4-6060-49C8-8390-AB2ED19E3E49.jpeg




If anyone can share the knowledge I think that would be greatly appreciated by others too.
 
Tet
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Often the main problem is the cameras the photos are taken with and the variable lighting conditions used. My own case for instance which has never been polished can in alot of photos not show any graining at all, in others it looks very prominent and much stronger than it appears to the naked eye even.

I've seen plenty of examples which have quickly been dismissed as refinished where I'm almost certain it's just harsh lighting making the graining appear much more prominent than normal.

Your example looks original, but more pics of other angles would be required to be sure. A dead giveaway which is also not often called out is the tiny sections of graining slightly passing in to the polished edges(this is usually when it's been grained by hand rather than lapping machines, clearly it's very tricky to avoid brushing right to the polished edge by hand and avoiding some bristles leaving their mark), I have seen people claiming their case has never been refinished where the evidence is clear to see from this detail but I prefer to just leave them to it unless they're trying to mislead anybody. If they're happy with it then let them be.

Another giveaway is where the radial brushing doesn't hold its correct direction all the way around the case, in other words on one side of the case the lines angle directly to the corner, while the other side of the case they aren't quite perfect in angle. I think this is due to cheaper lapping machines, or it could be they are rotated too quickly, I'm not sure. On a similar note on occasions the lines have a slight curve to them rather than straight.

At the end of the day the fact so many have been polished or refinished, folk get pretty eager to jump to conclusions from pics which aren't too clear, a bit like with difficult to make out redials where how many times are people jumping in with "redial!" only to be corrected later by an expert?

Hope I've been in some way helpful.
Edited:
 
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