Interesting. I tracked this auction and looks like someone nabbed a pre-Xmas Carrera at a good price. In terms of the tropical purple, I have a Rolex Submariner with the same degrade colouration, totally linear and strong rather than a fade. There seems to be a school of thought that it is caused by a reaction to the tritium lume and sunlight in combination (i.e. lume was more 'charged' under strong uv). Ultimately it is one type of dial ageing - silver dialled 1153 Carreras I have seen range from silver to champagne, probably for similar reasons, whilst the chrono hahds seem to fade out to yellow from fluo orange. All part of the uniqueness of each piece. Nice to see the older articles via the links (still with most images despite the best efforts of photobucket)