The Rarest of the Bunch: BA 176.007 – 18k Solid Gold

I’d like to share one of my recent cal. 1040 acquisitions, a Seamaster BA 176.007 in solid 18k gold.

This is the only reference in the 1040 family that was made in solid gold (that I know of), and I was skeptical of their existence for a while. Three popped up for sale in 2017, but it took me a while to be convinced they were legitimate. For starters, at the time I believed the only solid gold 007 to have been a one-off retirement gift for Albert Piguet, which is owned by the Omega Museum. Secondly, I didn’t believe the caseback engravings to be up to Omega’s normal standards. The inside of those casebacks, however, did look legitimate.

Even when the watch arrived, I had my doubts. It was lighter than I had anticipated – although it is made of 18k gold it weighs less than the steel Yachting chronograph 176.010. But the recent arrival of an Extract of the Archives from the Museum has eased my worries. The weight differential just shows how massive the Yachting case is compared to the 176.007, which has less metal.

As you can  see, it looks pretty inconspicuous from the front. It is no different looking from the front than a common gold-plated Seamaster 176.007 MD. However my estimates are that Omega made about 8,200 gold-plated versions, and less than 400 solid gold ones.

From the back, there are a few signs that this is not a gold-plated 007 and that it is a gold reference.  First, the gold caseback color matches the case, whereas the casebacks on a gold-plated 007 are unplated stainless steel. Second, there is a hallmark stamp on one of the lugs, which indicates a precious metal.

Sadly, the worst thing about my watch is that the caseback has been heavily polished. Upon close inspection, you can still see the word “SEAMASTER” in all caps. There is also another group of three hallmarks stamps still visible. The hippocampus and Omega symbol are no longer visible.

And here is the inside of the caseback:

So what did that outer engraving originally look like? Here is an image from the seller of another example that came up for sale last year:

 

I really doubted the legitimacy of that whole watch back then because of this engraving didn’t seem to match the detail and fonts of the steel and gold-plated casebacks of this family, and the auction listing didn’t share a photo of the inside of the caseback. But I was wrong about the engraving. See the following photo from page 605 of A Journey Through Time:

The engraving on the left of the 145.022 BA resembles the font and style of the caseback engraving of the examples of the  gold 176.007s that were for sale last year. It still seems strange that Omega would use such a simplistic engraving, but it may have been intentionally light so that customers could have it removed and replaced with their own engraving.

Last week, the Extract arrived, and confirmed this was indeed a legitimate 176.007 BA. I really think this is a truly rare watch, and I’m not one to use the word rare lightly. I estimate that fewer than 400 were made, which puts it in similar company to the gold flightmasters (145.013 BA – 200 pieces). So yes rare, but they are out there – again three were offered in 2017.

There have been other listings that dedicated googling can turn up that either incorrectly describe gold-plated 007s as solid gold, or describe a watch as solid gold without showing the outside or inside of the caseback, like this example. But overall the numbers are low. My estimate methodology produces an estimate of 368 as of now, but that number could be high because I wouldn’t know the serial number of mine had I not purchased it. The total number of observations would be just 2 without my own, so the small sample size makes an accurate estimate difficult. I wouldn’t be surprised if Omega said they made 500 of them or if they said they made only 50.