The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I've always been curious why most sellers black out the serial numbers on the watch and warranty card/paperwork. Is there something nefarious people can do with this info?

I'm going to be listing a Breitling for sale soon and just wanted to make sure I'm not exposing myself to some kind of fraud by showing the serial. I know as a buyer it makes me feel a lot better if I can see the serial matches the paperwork so I'd rather show it if it's not a danger.

I'm sure you know the answer!


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Blocking out the serial number is probably overkill (although I do it too!), but it COULD potentially let a faker engrave a fake watch with a number from a legitimate breitling of the correct model that would stand up to a cursory call to Breitling by an AD for example asking if they could verify a serial number. In my experience Breitling won't properly verify a watch as genuine unless they are actually sent it, but a quick serial number check could be conceivable.

Personally I think it's worth blocking them out if no other reason than the fact that it takes 2 seconds to do, and it will prevent any faker from being able to use your watch's serial anywhere else.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

I see your point. Sounds like the best practice would be to block the serial in the publicly posted images to keep the bots from immortalizing them on Google image search and then email the pictures to potential buyers privately showing the serial.