The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Dear vintage experts,

can I please have your comments, pics are good, but the watch ?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... MEWNX%3AIT

thank you, WatchFred

Fake. Breitling made some early single pusher models but nothing that looked this bad.

Garbage.

1) It's from Argentina so has a 99.99% chance of being a fake

2) Single pusher implies early 30s at the latest, seller claims 1960

3) Geneve on the dial indicates early 50s or later

4) It's from Argentina

5) Dial and movement have Breitling in print, caseback has it in (bad) script

6) It's from Argentina

7) Serial number would only be correct for a ver, very early watch (20s / 30s) - see point 3



I stopped looking after that, otherwise I am sure I could find more. Paul has risked a couple of South American purchases, but as a general rule, never buy from South America because that is the main centre to produce these frankenwatches. Fortunately this one's easy to spot the problems on.

thank you, confirms my feelings, still learning here.
best regards, WatchFred

Im Argentinean seller,

1) I know that some wristwatches from Argentina can be fake, but Im not agree with that 99,9% are fake. Exist honest people in Argentina like in others world places.

2) Yes, exist a mistake in the item description, the watch is not from 1960, perhaps is from 1930 or 1940

3) Geneve on the dial indicates early 50s or later, for me this indicate that dial was restored or refinished, In my opinion is totally normal for a wristwatch from 40´s

4) Also , the watch have other replaced parts, like acrylic, band , crown. The case and back also show have a restoration process,

5) We are talking about of watch that have more 50 or perhaps 60 years old.... obviously it was restored, fix , repaired , cleaned , oiled , disasembled and assembled several times until today.
Please , have this in mind before say that the watch is fake

OK it's in mind.....

It's a fake, a not very good one and you should be ashamed of trying to fleece people out of their hard earned money. Selling that watch as a Breitling is misrepresentation at best, and fraud at worst.

Hi, TimeStore,

And welcome to BreitlingSource. We all agree that there are many wonderful and fine things in and coming from Argentina, just like there are many fine and honest people there, too.

But, it does turn out that sellers from Argentina and Uruguay show an unfortunately high portion of bogus watches in their eBay sales. I presume that you and other sellers are getting faux "Breitlings" from the same source, since the wronguns share common characteristics. Can you report to us where you get watches for posting on eBay? I have no problem with you defending your watches (but we can point out the several errors), and I am curious about the supply chain for these, how shall we call them, "creations."

Thanks!

Bill you put me to shame

I'll put it down to my youth

Well, I investigated the movement in books, internet, etc, I found that is a Venus 175 or Venus 150, it was used for Breitling in 30's or 40's
I attach the picture movement from vintage Breitling book , all know that Breitling used this movement and I think that nothing discusss the originality movement.
The watch was restored, yes, acrilyc, band , crown, polished case, for wear again and looks like new ( this process take long time and much money ), but this means that is fake????
When somebody go to the watchmaker to replaced some damaged part, it convert your wristwatch in a fake wristwatch????
My apologizes if Im wrong, but we are talking about the one watch with Venus 175 movement with your correspondent case with visible and normal restoration process.

Yes, I agree with you
Exist a lot of sellers in SouthAmerica that sell fake wristwatches
I hate these sellers because they harm the the good and honest sellers.
Exist a lot of antique wristwatches & pocketwatches in south america because in the first and second War a lot of European citizens migrates to SouthAmerica with a lot of wristwatches.
Many fraudulent sellers take one anonymous watch and then engrave "Breitling" or other brand
I hate these sellers !!!!
For this reason, I try to explain that this watch is Breitling with original case and movement Venus 175 made in Breitling , with a serious and expensive restoration process,
Im Ebay member since 1999 with more than 1000 positive feedbacks
Also I have a prestige store here, my store is visited for collectors from all the world
At your disposal

I have probably purchased about a dozen Breitling's from South America over the years and have probably had only two that were not originally Breitling's and were good enough to fool me into purchasing them. Most of what I've purchased have been fine. In the case of this particular watch you're selling, there are a number of problems I can see with it and I'm not an expert. The hands aren't correct, the Breitling engraving on the back of the watch has been done by someone other than the Breitling factory. Most single push button models from the thirties are not chronograph models with two sub registers. There are a couple of single pusher dual sub register models but they're very rare and I've not seen one in person. I don't think I've ever seen a dual sub register model from the thirties, and maybe not the forties, that has a black dial with white subs. They didn't come along until much later.



Certain modifications can be made without affecting the originality of the watch or it's value. Mechanical replacement parts can wear out and be replaced but when the entire movement has been replaced, or swapped between watches of different brands, it affects the originality of the piece and the value significantly. When we have some original pieces and other peices from different manufacturers we call these frankenwatches. Like Frankenstein, a combination of many pieces from many places with little of the original piece left to identify. Unfortunately, this is what we see mostly coming out of South America and a few other locations around the world. That doesn't imply that every piece coming from these locations is bad, I know better than that, but it does suggest there's a problem here and one has to be VERY careful about doing research prior to purchasing. Every day I see people spending hundreds of dollars on worthless junk. It just gets to you after a while. When these modifications are done with the expressed purpose to make someone believe the watch is genuine than it is fraud. Ebay used to be very proactive about policing this problem but have distanced themselves lately because it's just too big a problem for them to cope with.

I still belive that this particular watch was NOT manufactured by Breitling originally and can clearly be considered a fake Frankenwatch, but am impressed by Timestores "guts" to try and face criticism honestly and openly discuss this case, have seen many others who just ducked and reappeared under a different ebay alias. WatchFred

The story is short
I bought this watch an Italian old man , 75 years old approx. He visited my store to sell it.
I personally checked the originality movement and I didn't find anything bad , so, I decided buy it
then my watchmaker worked on it , for restoring the best as possible. like put a new band, acrilyc, crown, polished case, cleaned and oiled the movement, Im 100% sure that my watchmaker did not other modifications.
This watch was made in Swiss in 1930 or 1940 ,
I born in 1966, so, I can not tell you if someone replaced the hands in 1950
Just return the watch and finish the problem
I only have an User Ebay ID.


Regards

There lies the root of the problem. Italy is also a problem spot for fake Breitling's. Looks like someone went all the way to South America to do an Italian scam.

Timestore, at least you now know where to visit if you have questions about vintage Breitling's.

Yeah, and I highly recommend that you come here if you get a Breitling in future. Regardless of who 'created' this watch it fails the most basic of tests for being genuine. Ignore the movement - I'll assume that it's a single pusher variant, and it could be a Breitling (or not), but the serial number and dial are clearly inconsistent and the engraving on the caseback can be identified as non Breitling by anyone with the most basic knowledge.

If you don't know whether you have the real thing or not then don't put it on eBay as the real thing - as I said earlier it is misrepresentation at best. I'm sorry, but if you can't tell that this is wrong then you shouldn't be selling Breitlings.