Posted by The gold-plated Seamaster Yachting chronograph 176.010 MD is pretty uncommon, as I’ve discussed before. So anytime one comes up for sale I take notice. The most recent example to cross my radar has a number of interesting attributes. Check out the listing here.
First of all what jumps out is the bezel, which is all gold to match the color of the dial and the case. I have discussed this before (scroll to the bottom of my bezel guide) and think it is likely legit but rare. So it immediately stood out when I saw the listing. When digging deeper into the photos of this listing, there are even more peculiarities.
The next thing I noticed that was off was that the caseback is for a steel 176.010, lacking the stamped words “FOND ACIER INOXYDABLE CARRURE-LUNETTE PLAQUE OR G 20 MICRONS” that a correct gold-plating caseback would have. Here’s a comparison, a correct 176.010 MD caseback on the left, the watch in question on the right:
See here for information on what should be on a 1040 caseback. So that is a pretty decent red flag that makes me suspect that this watch is put together and not 100% original. At the very least the caseback is wrong, and now it makes the bezel a little more suspicious…
Then there’s the dial. If you look closely and compare it to my dial guide for what I call “flag” or “Type I” dials, you’ll quickly see that this dial is NOT the Type I3 dial that it kinda sorta looks like at first glance. Dial I3 is pretty common and found often on gold-plated Seamasters 176.007. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of my common dial I3 (left) and the watch in question (right):
There are a few big differences. First, the logo on this dial is painted, and not applied. Second, the 6:00 subdial is flat, and not concave, and has different text and markings. The flatness and markings actually are more similar to dials I1, I2, and I4. Third, the date window is closed (again, making it MORE similar to the other Type I dials). Fourth, the 9:00 subdial markings are completely unique. Its lacks the am/pm color differences that the majority of 1040 dials possess (only the Seamaster Big Blue Type F dials lack the contrasting colors), and it lacks most of the outer “spokes”. Fifth, the lume dots are positioned differently than I3. And last, it lacks SWISS MADE markings, which is typical of pre-production dials in the 1040 family but not seen on the ones found in the wild like D1, F2, or K1.
So this dial is really unique, pulling in features from several types of dials. Is it a new legit dial? Is it a pre-production, test, or prototype dial? Is it a redial? I am usually a skeptic, but I think this dial is pretty compelling. However the wrong caseback and an unusual bezel make me too uncomfortable to declare this as completely legit.
The watch is currently for sale on chrono24 from a private seller in Switzerland. The photos were taken from that listing on February 22, 2019 for illustrative and educational purposes.
Love to see what you find Andy. I’ve just perused photos of the gold Yachting and do see 2 other distinct examples of this watch having that same bezel, albeit with correct flag type dials having brown PM paint at the lower half of the 24 hr subdial. Sloppy that the seller you’ve found has that bezel rotated 5 mins clockwise. If this dial were faked you’d think they’d have added T SWISS MADE T like all others I’ve seen have. They certainly would’ve had the ability and it’s an important dynamic. My guess is you’ve found a prototype.