The Breitling Watch Source Forums

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"A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure."

wrong link, do u mean this ?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BREITLING-MILIT ... 3f1fa9c584

pathetic junk, poorly refinished dial, capitals logo on dial & bridge wrong for the claimed WWII period (and rather poorly executed),
missing reference and serial number. and a load of bull in the description.

I figured it was fake.

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"A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure."

Reported

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"A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure."

Question for you...I've noticed many of these come from a few specific geographic areas and from what I've read from you and others, many are only part-authentic at best, usually poorly refinished, and almost always have tons of non-OEM parts even if they are parts of a real Breitling. Any idea why it flows from these areas? I know dive Seikos flow like water from the Philippines due to a former plant, former shipping route in the 90s and the local culture in which there are many people who can almost make the Seiko movements out of bubble gum and service them in the dark, so I'm curious if there is an explanation why.

there is probably no general answer, but most of these pieces com from countries w/ relatively
low wages; because no matter how pathetic the piece, it still takes quite a lot of manhours
to "produce" them.

The Ukraine & Poland seem to specialize in "WWII" pieces, maybe building on the theory that
people believe the millions of German soldiers all wore beautiful, complicated brand name watches .....
There is a guy doing quite nice "marrigae" watches, but the rest are pathetic junk.

China (thankfully) still specialized in fake 3-hands, that have little in common w/ authentic pieces,
but sell like hot cakes ....

Then there is South America, primarily Argentina - the 3-hands are mostly pathetic junk,
made to appeal to buyers who are looking for that "brand new" look, but refinishing
workmanship is actually good, dial refinishing quality often better than we can find
in Europe or the US; so there must be some very, very good artisans there, a requirement
for the "high end" fakes.

But they do come from everywhere, many from from Italy or Spain, but a lot from Germany,
or even the UK, though real Frankenwatches are actually quite rare, in most cases the only
- possibly - authentic piece on the typical "stunning vintage 18k Breitling chronograph from
the 1940s" is the winding crown - put on a noname watch w/ a fake dial.

Interesting. Thanks!

I think you are right about the WW2 pieces in that sellers can appeal to the over-romanticized notion of WW2...a lot of other WW2 merchandise (which I don't think was even involved with the war) is sold under the premise and it seems to drive up the price.

I have noticed on eBay that the China-based fakes of older ones seem to sell so quickly that sometimes eBay isn't quick enough to pull the listing before the BIN is used. I am guessing they use the BIN on purpose then if eBay pulls the listing post-sale that the seller and buyer have each other's contact info at that point to complete the transaction outside of eBay.

Can the Argentina artisans finish Breitling hands/dials at the level of detail that Breitling can? If I glance at the dial of my Seikos versus my Breitling with the naked eye, it looks pretty similar, but then when I look at them magnified, I notice the degree of detail on my (modern) Breitling is far, far, far greater and attention is paid to many things that could easily be overlooked by other makers. Is level of face detail on older models one of the good ways of judging a fake much like the newer models? I've noticed that on modern Breitling fakes that a high quality picture blown up 100x or so will reveal at least a few things that the con artist missed when compared to a similar shot of the same (authentic) model.

on - conservatively - 95% you would, with a little experience see at first glance the piece is wrong.
same are worryingly good, but this is quite rare.

some short examples from my junkwatch list, all from the last days:

typical refinished Chronographe Suisse, these come from all over the world:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/181037987417?ss ... 1438.l2649
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261135359784?ss ... 1438.l2649
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BREITLING-18-K- ... true&rt=nc
http://www.ebay.de/itm/MILITARY-VINTAGE ... 27cd91fd56
http://www.ebay.de/itm/BREITLING-Chrono ... 1e75086370
http://www.ebay.de/itm/TRAUMHAFT-EDLER- ... 27cd797089
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Rare-original-BR ... 25784d8a0a
or "run of the mill" 60s/70s pieces
http://www.ebay.de/itm/SPORTLICHER-VINT ... 27cd91e9e0
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Breitli ... 51a5020580

Looking at the ones on the "typical refinished Chronographe Suisse" links you posted, it looks like the ones that have close ups of the dials show the colors to have bled, the lines arernt crisp, and the numbering to be almost splotchy...the best way I could describe it is like a hand stamp that doesn't have enough ink to make the image perfectly...is that because they are fake? Are they actual Chronographe Suisses with just 'Breitling' put on the dial? (they look really similar to http://www.antiquehelper.com/auctionimages/37364t.jpg). I see they all have essentially the exact case and all of the chronos are in one of two possible positions only.

...and that leads me to my next question...they can't be worth the $1,500 plus people are paying, can they?!?!

The entire dial is restamped using amateur equipment. They are selling for those prices because people think that they are Breitlings.

So then they are actual Chronographe Suisses just with a dial job of mediocre quality and perhaps engraving on the movement and caseback?

yes. typically nice CS, slaughtered w/ wrong redials, wrong engravings .....
and instead of selling for around $500-700 for a nice 18k CS, they sell for $1.200-1.500 or more. crime pays.

I hate people who do stuff like that...so wrong. And the actual Chronographe Suisses without the fake moddings look like pretty nice pieces all around...