It took just 14 minutes to cause consternation in the watch world. On November 5th 2021 the bidding opened on a vintage Omega watch at the Geneva branch of Phillips, a British auction house. Aurel Bacs, the auctioneer, had a reputation for drumming up record-breaking prices. Yet the watch, a Speedmaster Broad Arrow from 1957, had a fairly low starting price for its type—just SFr60,000 ($66,000 at the time). 

The watch was an early version of the model that became known as the “Moonwatch”, after Buzz Aldrin wore one during the first lunar landing. It had a coveted “tropical” brass dial, meaning that its colour had changed as it aged, from black to a rich chocolate brown. Other than that, there was little to distinguish it from the many other Speedmasters that are auctioned by Phillips each year. Nor was this watch immaculate: it had several blemishes, including a long scratch on the dial.

Sacha Davidoff, a Geneva-based dealer, had a client who was interested in buying an early-series Speedmaster with a tropical dial. But Davidoff thought the watch on the auction floor was so unremarkable that he slipped out with a friend for chips and a beer. It “felt like it had been fiddled with”, he told me later: he thought the dial had been restored and that the bezel, the ring that surrounds it, was not in the same condition as the rest of the watch. These changes were not necessarily the result of malicious intent, but they did mean the watch was not of the highest calibre. “You get the feeling when you have that crusty watch that has never been opened before…when you know it’s been unmolested, untouched, perfect,” Davidoff told me. “And then there’s this type of watch, where you know it’s been through many hands before.”