A 105.002 in Christie’s online

Christies have several online sales throughout the year, and they are worth keeping an eye on, as they are very poorly viewed. I myself bought two watches last year for the floor price, and I was the only bidder.

So for the moment, if you are a buyer, these online sales are worth looking at. These 105.002’s are so rare, and hard to price, when one comes up its always interesting to study. This is lot 8 and can bee seen here

This is the baton hand version, and is very similar to the 105.003.

This is a great photo, and we can learn a lot. The dial is what we must first look to. In this case, it is a No T marks, no pro stepped dial, and this is what we expect to see. As an aside, the O in Omega is round, and again this is to be expected – it is just good practice to be checking this in these early watches.

Here we can see the dial has lost a lot of lume from the plots. The white undercoat of the plots is showing – some will want to relume this dial, but it is almost impossible at the moment to sell a relumed watch. (That will change I am sure).

We must also look carefully at the printing, and we can see some minor blemishes in the minute track around the edge of the dial, but these could well be marks on the crystal.

In general this looks a nice original piece, with correct parts. It also has the 7912/6 bracelet and endlinks, and this is a significant value. It really does bear out the description of being a one owner watch, and this always adds to the attraction.

So is it worth buying? At $10,000 plus the commission it will come home at $12,500. It could be – if you can live with the dial lume plots, or lack of them. (I could). Now having said that, this watch is not in fine condition, and it is this quality of watch that is failing to sell for prices set within the last 12 months. So you have to go in with eyes wide open. Having said that, if you are looking for a 105002 the choices are always limited.

Fine examples of this reference are still selling privately for over $25,000 and exceptional ones for more. So $12500 seems cheap – certainly last year it would have sold easily. The question is are there still buyers for the lower quality like there were last year?

If you go to Chrono 24 (here) you will see this is the cheapest 105002 on the market today.