Posted by Separating fact from fiction when it comes to these vintage chronographs is kind of the unspoken mission of Calibre 1040. A simple formula for a lot of the confusion would be:
Variation + Compatibility + Time = Chaos
Because Omega cranked out so many dials and cases for cal. 1040, and because the hands and dials can fit and operate in any of the cases, over time lots of unholy marriages of cases and dials have been seen. The story that follows illustrates how these incorrect matches can happen honestly, forever fogging the picture of what the legitimate variants were in the early 1970s.
In June 2010 a user at Watchuseek posted the story of an Omega service issue he was experiencing. He had sent his 176.007ST sporting dial A2 to Omega for service, when it came back the dial had been replaced with a Mark III Speedmaster dial (E2). The thread ended with the original poster stating that he had emailed Stephen Urquhart, then president of Omega, and Nicolas Hayek, then CEO of the Swatch Group, to complain and help him get the issue resolved.
Flash forward 5 years…
In August 2015 the original poster listed the watch for sale on eBay and included photocopies of his correspondence with Urquhart from 2010. Urquhart not only responded, but Omega commissioned a one-off replacement dial matching the original A2 dial layout specs!
This story illustrates both the good and the bad of Omega service on vintage watches. While it is impressive that Urquhart himself responded and went above and beyond to correct a mistake, it unfortunately justifies the concerns many vintage Omega collectors have about sending their watches to Omega; i.e. not just the risk that your watch will lose original parts, but that it might also lose correct parts.
For 1040 collectors this is a big deal: of 28 or so dials originally offered on watches from the era, Omega now stocks nine. This story also supports those of us that tend to not believe in the originality of Mark III dials found in ref. 176.007 or 176.005, which Chuck Maddox referred to as Mark III(b) and Mark III(c) respectively.
The Myth of the Mark III(b) (or III(c), IV(b) etc.)
If you click the link above, you’ll be taken to the late Chuck Maddox’s article on the “Mark” Series of Speedmasters, Chuck was writing from the lens of further understanding the Speedmaster family, whereas I tend to focus on one individual movement. Still, after all these years, that article remains the most important and thorough article I’ve ever found on cal. 1040. Go give it a read!
Realize that Chuck first published that in the 1900s. Some of he watches in that article were about as old then as the article is now. There was no Instagram, no Hodinkee, no Moonwatch Only or A Journey Through Time. The online watch community was in its infancy and figuring out what was real and what was a fabrication was orders of magnitude more difficult in those days than today.
I point all of that out to say that I believe that Chuck was wrong about these uncommon configurations. Today we have the benefit of all the resources Chuck didn’t have, plus time and experience. And thanks to those advantages we can safely say there is no Mark III(b) in any official sense. Omega never manufactured 176.007’s with Speedmaster dials.
How can I prove this? I can’t. Call it a preponderance of evidence. Urquhart’s email is the closest thing to a smoking gun we have – he admits to the mistake that probably has led to most of these configurations. The dials look pretty similar and a watchmaker could easily grab the wrong one from the shelf or order the wrong part. The rest of these are most likely the result of creative “modders” or deceptive sellers hoping to fabricate something “rare”. Chuck’s site has helped perpetuate the myth because it is still so useful and considered an authoritative source in many aspects.
The bottom line is that I strongly believe 176.007 and 176.005 are Seamaster references; and 176.002 and 176.009 are Speedmaster references. Everything else is put together. If you stumble across some unexpected configuration described by the seller as extremely rare, you’re free to believe what you want. Just realize how easily a dial swap can happen.
Main image source: Watchuseek, posted by mromegaman