I thought that the sale of this exceptionally rare, but exceptionally batters, IMS dial was very interesting to follow.

Assuming that they were legitimate bidders, we saw four bidders offer more than $5,000 for this dial. This dial was sold alone, as a dial.

Sometime in the not-so-distant future, we may see this same dial offered for sale again, this time mounted in a Reference 3646 Autavia. Based on what we have seen in the past, I imagine that this assemblage will sell for more than the sum of its parts. We have seen loose Chronomatic dials, loose test dials, loose Skipperrera and Yaching dials, and many dials with logos floating around . . . without fail, the value for these dials goes way up (well beyond the value of the individual parts) when put into the correct case. Whether this occurs with fully informed buyers, or whether there is some deception along the way, is another question. But it will be interesting to see what new home this IMS dial will find.

Social media (from Geneva) is suggesting that we will soon see another IMS Autavia offered for sale (shown below). I am guessing that if this beautiful dial was born in this beautiful case, then we will see some huge multiple of what the loose dial fetched on eBay. Who knows . . . maybe we won't need to multiply at all . . . we just put a "$10" in front of the "6,276" and roll on!!

Don't you just love this crazy hobby!!

Jeff

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: Just a few thoughts..,I think a mint complete, correct Indy 3646 is
: a very valuable watch but I think a one with a badly damaged
: dial is not, and when it reappears as a complete watch it is
: worth a small % the value of a mint original one, unless you for
: some reason want to overpay for a service dept dustbin patina,
: each to their own of course! If the recent sales teach us
: anything (on all brands inc Rolex and Patek) it is that true top
: level grails which are generally unobtainable (because
: collectors generally are keeping them) in great condition will
: achieve very strong prices but watches that are not so hard to
: come by or are in average conditions or with marked or dirty
: dials, or have incomplete /wrong parts (possibly relumed) will
: rightly not have impressive values. For example there should be
: a massive difference between the best 1st exec 2446 Autavia and
: one that has been relumed, in my opinion it shouldn't be in the
: same ballpark. I suspect lots of ordinary watches are being
: pumped into auctions to take effect of the recent price
: increases and the hope that a crazy outlier value (think IDF
: Autavia or Orvis Solunar or ordinary Rindts over £25k) will
: apply to their watch...so these sales are showing a higher
: percentage of ordinary watches, certainly more than in the prior
: few years. Quality, originality, correctness and provenance will
: become ever more important especially at the top end.

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