Edit By Mod - Watch is now back here as of 13/03/2016:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-OME...109887?hash=item5b21717dff:g:JmsAAOSwxp9W4NH6Purchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network

After some fun discussion with @oddboy about this watch/eBay listing, he has convinced me that it is truly SOOOOO bad, that it needs it's own thread! As such, here we go with breaking my thread starting cherry! (Ouch! Oooo wait... that kinda felt good though!)

Whilst perusing the sea of Speedmaster listings on eBay, I happened across a listing titled "VINTAGE OMEGA SPEEDMASTER PROFESSIONAL 145022 CHRONOGRAPH CAL 861 MENS WATCH." Within the body of this amazing, sure to strike gold listing that I discovered(as I'm sure many of you who have any of these eBay search terms did as well) it reads:

DIAL ORIGINAL DIAL

YES! It's an original dial!!! (Maybe) There is, however, no mention of the bezel. Before we go on, here are some pics of this gem that beginner's and seasoned vets may ask upon sight,"Why haven't you made an offer to the seller to stop the auction early and why are you wasting time here telling us about this???" Where is emoji for tongue in cheek? Picard will have to do.

I will say this before the pix... I've already pointed out the dial, then there is the bezel. At first glance it may appear, especially to an untrained eye, to be a DON, but is it? Is it really a DON? I mean, the dot is over 90, but.... I'll admit, I'm still learning fonts, print, etc. and this took me a couple ganders before I went, wha-wha-whattttt???
Here is the link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-OME...650421?hash=item43e98584b5:g:bnoAAOSwKtVWuUzsPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network

Here are the salient pictures from the listing for those that fear hyperlinks (hyperlinkaphobia is totally a real thing, check it out on wiki):



And oh yeah, there it is:


But wait, there's more! This fine quality is not just sold in any (eBay) store! Let's check under the hood!

What. The. Hell. Is. That? A serial number of 24xxxxxx? Did someone carve that 2 in by hand after the rest of the serial was imprinted? What a rarity!!!

So I post this amazing Speedie listing both for the sake of comedy and as a lesson for casual readers, new comers, new Speedie fans (of which the market reports there are many and I would likely still qualify as one) and the like, with a caveat that I myself really don't know what the hell I'm talking about yet, but I'm learning. Maybe this is like a midterm or first qtr exam? I see some things, I see some stuff!

What's in a name? A DON by any other name would smell as sweet? Not really. A fine condition DON bezel may be fetching $2K this week, but it's about more than just dot being over ninety here... if this bezel was taken off, I could see it being sold to the over anxious or unwitting with, "Look, Dot is over Ninety. Give me $2K, see last few sales?" And bam, someone thinks I have a DON bezel now for my Speedie! And while there is a dot over the ninety...

It took me seeing this listing as I've embarked on the beginning of my own Speedie collecting journey lately to really realize, yet again, that: there's some whacky Speedie out there right now; I've learned a thing or two hanging around you derelicts (I really mean that in that nicest of ways! Nothing but for y'all!); and I finally felt comfortable enough (after some counsel and cajoling) to post this out there. Hopefully it is not received like one of those email scam forwards you get, where you think "Ugh, I know, we've all been solicited by the Gambian Prince before, it's not new." (You'll get it again, it comes around every few years, like the cicadas!) Because sadly, we've all been through this Speedie routine before and that's why... this Speedie is the Gambian Prince. Someone will buy him. Another will pop-up (and another thread will emerge here discussing) and the Gambian Prince will get someone else...

Well, have at it boys (and girls). I'm curious to hear the discussion (and please share other current Speedie listing disasters!) as we can watch the Best. Speedie. Ever. get auctioned in 4 days time. Already over $1500... that's a lot of jellybeans.

 

Good post.

There are good watches, bad watches, and then there are absolute liars and cheats who put together abominations like this and try to deceive naive buyers.

 

Just to add some more pics,

 

Sorry, it's late here, but I've re-read that several times and I think I'm missing the point. I'm not a vintage speedy person so I've done no independent research as I'll never want to buy one, but for the tired, confused or idiotic, what's up with the bezel?

 

He watch is billed as original 145.022-69

The dial is a nonT marked dial so incorrect for year.

The movement carries a number that was not put on by omega, nor is it a number in range of an 861. The movement bridges are of different colors suggesting different origins.

I have not quite decided exactly what the bezel is, but it is not correct. It does not look the same as an omega made and fitted bezel and I am on an iPhone trying to see the details but it's hard. All I can say is it's so wrong that I don't want to waste time picking it apart as the whole watch is an attempt to defraud.

 

If I'm not mistaken, the dot at 70 is in the wrong place. A DON (as known on speedmaster101) should also have a 'dot diagonal to 70' (as known in mwo). In this case, the dot at 70 appears to be below the 70.

The lugs also look very cut down, to me at least.

Edit, compare:

Ebay 70:


One of mine:

 

There's been several of these bezels on ebay recently.

I reluctant to start pointing out the flaws as we'd essentially be helping these people improve their repros. Suffice to say I don't think theyre genuine.

 

D'oh!

 

Haha

 

Is the dial some sort of service replacement? The lume extends further towards the outside than the normal post 1968 Speedmaster dials?

The plastic/delrin brake in the movement is another big warning sign..

 

It's also sad that this has bids on it.. Over $1,500 already.

 

I posted a link to this one in another thread about a similar 105.003 - it came from a different eBay seller but the photo style was bang-on the exact same. There's something really spooky about this one....

Dot under 70 I think is a modern bezel. I don't have a normal one, but that's where the dot is on my XI-45's rose gold bezel.

 

Yes, but on modern, dot is beside 90 and below 70. This one is just strange.

 

Thanks for posting, had to put that franken' in the watch list to see the closing price.


That bezel is scary, as others have mentioned let's not give pointers to counterfeiters. Just go look at your own Speedy and Moonwatch Only.

 

RUNS GREAT ALL FUNCTION WORKING PROPERLY

Just don't mind the rust, its only on a few of the movement parts.

 

I saw that watch on ebay too.

In my opinion that bezel insert is fake. It's not consistent with the DON font.

 

Right - what I meant is this appears to be a modern bezel with the 90 dot somehow moved above - probably painted over the original, then painted a new one above.

To be honest, I've been waiting to see this happen for quite some time, and I'm surprised it took this long.

 

My apologies to all... I didn't intend to "cut and run" with this yesterday. Had to go get my wife and son after posting and I never got a chance to respond to anything the rest of the night as it was too difficult to address everything on tapatalk! So now that there's been some good raucous discussion (as I was hoping!) about the problems with this stellar example of watchmaking craftsmanship, I'll say what I saw.

At the outset, I will say to those that don't want to discuss the problems in full to not help counterfeiters be better in the future that there is a fine line between helping holes and helping to educate others from not buying something like this. The point of my post was the latter, and in keeping true to my original intent, I will lean towards discussing the abundance of issues here as this example is really a proper teaching tool because it has almost nothing correct... except the placement of the dot over ninety and that caseback looks right!

So... the issues with the bezel were mostly pulled out. A proper DON should also have a dot next to 70. A modern service replacement has the dot below 70, which this example does but shouldn't with a dot over 90 so the dots here are a total mish mosh of old and new placement. Speaking of the dots, they're also all TOO BIG! Look at the size of those things!!! As someone else noted, the font/text is also off for a DON... this seems to also incorporate the font of a tall text DN90/DN70 bezel that followed the DON and 220 mistake. Finally, I'd say it's just overall too shiny and reflective, especially in the text and numbers. Even the proper modern service replacement I have doesn't reflect light or flash like that. There might've been a couple other things too that I'm forgetting now, but the point of it all is that just because it is called "dot over 90" does not mean, as many of us know, that it is only about the placement of that dot over the 90. I don't know that I personally would've known that a few months ago myself as I started down the road of Speedie interest/collecting...

As @Spacefruit also noted, the dial is clearly wrong. It is a later non-T service replacement, certainly not "Original." This was actually the first thing that popped out to me before I even started looking at the bezel trying to figure out what the hell was going on there.

The movement??? I really don't know what the hell that is either. A total counterfeit? Maybe. In fact, likely. Pulled from a seamaster? Maybe, but the coloring and numbering is just all off and yeah, it's rusting! I'm leaning towards complete counterfeit movement.

I never even bothered looking at the case, crown, pushers, etc. Clearly the hands are also later superlumi service replacements, if not aftermarket given the rest of this gem.

So my ultimate main point is that this watch is like a case study in everything that you can find wrong in a vintage .022-69 DON Speedie. Therefore, it's really the perfect teaching tool as there is so much to point out in this example of look out for X and Y and Z and oh yeah, this example has all of that wrong with it!

That said, 3 days and counting and the bidding is now at $1632.

 

I was following that one too. It really did have an eerily similar photographic look, albeit from a different seller. That one when for what, like $3610? Stunning...

 

That's definitely a fake bezel. The finish of the insert itself is a dead giveaway before we get into the printing. I wouldn't be surprised if more was counterfeit as well, with the rest assembled from spare parts.
This seller even attracted attention from Hodinkee last year who called them out: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/f...great-breitlings-heuers-movados-and-vacherons