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My Metric -- Samples Per Year (SPY)
In Response To: Re: Estimates of Production Numbers -- Vintage Heuer ()

My favorite metric has always been "Samples Per Year" . . . or "SPY".

The simple question -- in a year of searching diligently, how many reasonable samples of a particular watch might the collector be able to find, offered for sale? Condition must be decent or better; price must be realistic enough for us to conclude that the watch is really for sale. Channels can be eBay, chrono24, dealers, Instagram or wherever diligent searching might take the collector.

Some current estimates . . .

  • An Orange Boy? Maybe three to five per year.
  • A Viceroy Autavia? Could be 50; could be 100 . . . but it's a big number, in the vintage Heuer world.
  • A "Siffert" Chronomatic? Maybe one. An "MH" Autavia Chronomatic? That might be 0.3.
  • Carrera 2447 S, first execution? Probably around 15 or 20.
  • Black PVD Monaco / Dark Lord? I would say one or two

Of course, none of this is scientific or based on any hard data . . . just gut responses, based on years of searching.

Jeff

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

: Thank you for you information responses. Someone better at
: statistics then me would probably be able to say something more
: signification about sample v population size.

: However, I'm still left wonder how without many years of experience
: of watching the market I understand exactly how rare models
: really are?

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