A Look at a lower priced Ed White Sold on OmegaForums.net

Here is an interesting sale of an Ed White for $7,500 on Omegaforums.net.

The sale is OHPF but I feel it is quite an important landmark in the market today. The watch has issues and was offered at a realistic price, and the sale was agreed within 24 hours.

There have been plenty of poor watches offered and left hanging around, or not sold through big auction houses, and the sellers have been left baffled as to why their rather poor example is not receiving interest at $15,000 or even $20,000. (You know who you are).

 
 

A Face only a mother could love?

No, that is unfair. For me watch collecting, and buying, is all about finding the sweet spot between attraction and value.

This watch would rightly be pilloried if offered  for say $10,000.

But its not being offered for that it has sold against an asking price of $7,500.

An Ed White at this level is one of the cheapest I have seen for a long time, and this one has the benefit of being correct, and with an Extract of the Archives.

The Dial

It is a stepped, non pro, close spaced T marked dial. We can see from the single face on photo on the listing, that the dial is correct, probably original, and in poor condition.

The dial base has white patches that may be improvable by a skilled watchmaker / restorer, but I do not have any previous success to base that on.

The print on the dial is surprisingly intact, and only shows some damage on the minute counter sub dial, where the white flake is.

The plots are not in a bad condition, as I would have expected to see more decay or discolouration based on the dial body colour, however they do look original.

So by my assessment this dial is POOR

The case

The condition is worn, with loss of definition on the two lugs shown in the listing. However I don’t really have a problem with that, I feel I have enough of an idea at the price level. The owner describes this as strong, an adjective I have yet to find meaning for when referring to watch case condition. The case back is clean and in good condition.

So I would say the mid case is in FAIR condition and the case back in GOOD condition.

 

The Bezel

This is poor – It is a DO90 but it is POOR

Summary

This watch is a correct, but poor to fair example with correct parts, and importantly, and extract. As long as it is not too expensive it can be appealing.The grades come out as follows:

Dial:            POOR

Mid Case    FAIR

Caseback    GOOD

Bezel           POOR

In the price chart, a 105.003-65 is 6000 for POOR and 10,000 for FAIR.

The way I look at it, is that this watch is not entirely POOR, but not entirely FAIR and so the price of 7500 fits in the structure of the chart quite well.