Watchlords

https://forums.watchuseek.com/f11/bring ... 89051.html

Hello and welcome, lads and lasses, to the 35th instalment of your favourite (or au contraire) comedy/watchdog series! Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more! As the end of the year is slowly approaching, once more we will have a look at a selection of the genuinely dreadful from the vintage watch market. The things to stay away from, the misinformation... And at some good news. Well...the game's afoot! Follow your spirit, and upon this charge... This is your Bring a Brain!

First of all, we will have a look at the Usual Suspects. What unsavoury dish have they served us this festive season?

Let us examine some stuff from their Shop first.

For example, this "Cartier" Movado:
https://shop.hodinkee.com/collections/v ... -14k-gold
The watches made for Cartier rather than by Cartier are tricky stuff. Looking them up yields hardly any conclusions. It is certain that LeCoultre made entire Futurematics and Memovoxes for Cartier. Though the LeCoultres had one important detail - the movements had Cartier markings. Any pattern here? Not really.

This thing? The only links to Cartier seem to be the dial and the bracelet. Why don't they convince me? All it takes to replace a bracelet is...a spring bar tool. With drilled lugs like on this one, you'd pull it off with a paper clip.
The font is fuzzy, and funnily enough, it is the only fuzzy feature on this dial. As if someone did the "Automatic" and "Switzerland" properly, and then thought, "yeah, I don't care about doing the Cartier bit right after all." Looks like either this dial saw some bad cleaning, or the Movado signature has been removed and replaced with a Cartier one. Removing text without compromising the structure of the dial is perfectly possible, as was demonstrated by the incident with the fake Daytona "Solo." Whoever did that Daytona, left the surface below the old text intact. I wonder if we aren't dealing with the same situation here.

The only thing to connect this one to Cartier thus remains the blotchy logo.

When it comes to the Taubert case, we don't just get one clown's gag here, we get the entire circus:

This watch is special because the case was made by Taubert and Freres Borgel (FB)

On what Earth, in what world, in what time and dimension has this company ever been called Taubert and Freres Borgel? After Francois Borgel died, that being in 1912, the company was run by his daughter Louisa, who sold it to the Taubert family in 1924. Then the company became Taubert & Fils. With the death of Paul Taubert, and the company being passed on to his sons, it was renamed Taubert Freres (Taubert Brothers) SA. The FB has always stood for Francois Borgel, and the Tauberts simply chose to keep the successful marquee. "Freres Borgel." Good one, H-Boys. You need to...


Now, let's have a look at the column to which Bring a Brain owes its name... The most recent one:
https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/bring ... r-13-2019
Am I the only one here to think that the dial of that GMT-Master is a lime-green relume disaster?

Oh, and BaL has, last month...
https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/bring-a-loupe-nov-15

...hyped this:
https://www.harbor-watches.com/projects/7182225

A listing with...just the frontal shot of the watch. Movement - not identified. Going by the fact that they've listed the "Super Patented" inscription from the movement as the calibre number, they have opened the watch, and Jove knows how they did it, because to list that as the calibre means they had at best an IQ of 50 at their disposal.

OK, let us leave the Usual Suspects, and have a look at the King of Cape Cod...

...only - and that's the good news - the King of Cape Cod seems to be gone for good!


Here's what shows up when you visit the VintageCaliber site:


That venue's done for good. Fare thee not so well, ya won't be missed.

So, no garbage any longer from this one, but still, wanna buy some garbage?

https://wannabuyawatch.com/product/role ... irca-1952/
A nearly 8 grand redial, why not?

No, that's not nearly bad enough, and if you need a really bad redial, Wannabuygarbage aims to please:
https://wannabuyawatch.com/product/role ... irca-1938/

If a redialed Rolex is too pedestrian for you, of course you can also have a redialed Vacheron Constantin:
https://wannabuyawatch.com/product/vach ... rca-1940s/

If VC is meh, and you're all about redialed Pateks, the Garbage Heap has something for you too:
https://wannabuyawatch.com/product/pate ... rca-1950s/

Nahhh, a redialed Rolex will, after some consideration, do better. Well, here you go:
https://wannabuyawatch.com/product/role ... a-1950s-2/

I suppose Wannabuyagarbage should get a TV channel of their own, or even a spot on Evine, so that their trash would be sold right next to Invictas. Obviously, all delivered to trailer parks, and paid for with ValuePays.


Now that we've had a look at the USA's largest trash vintage vendor, let's see one of their European counterparts... Straight out of Vienna, Der Redialkaiser, Vintage Portfolio.

So, how best to ruin a vintage Rolex?
https://www.vintage-portfolio.com/shop/ ... ouse-dial/
You've got to be taking the mickey, chaps... Just look at the fuzzy print and the misaligned minute track.

Calatrava Houdini is strong with these fellers...
https://www.vintage-portfolio.com/shop/ ... calatrava/
Oh, come on. That's getting boring.

You just don't get it, all I want is a dial that looks like a dog chewed it, and this comes close:
https://www.vintage-portfolio.com/shop/ ... -numerals/
Well, maybe not. This looks like just a cat scratched it...

...and I said I want a dog-chewed-it dial!
https://www.vintage-portfolio.com/shop/ ... lack-dial/
Yeah, that'll work. Wonder why they seem to equate "unrestored" and "mangled," that's not the same thing.


Yeah, well, that'll be enough for this instalment. It's only so much that I let my eyes be hurt by such horrors. As always, Bring a Brain will return when necessary!

As always, no one polices the vintage shills gets like Mr. Bloke. This should be published all over the world.

I think these sites know that what they are selling is a lie, they just don’t care. And looks like there are enough uneducated, gullible buyers to pay for all the screwing these assclowns care to dish out at $2500+++

But isn't faux patina all the rage these days?

Yet another fine installment, Mr. Bloke!

biglove wrote: ↑

December 13th 2019, 7:34pm

As always, no one polices the vintage shills gets like Mr. Bloke. This should be published all over the world.

I think these sites know that what they are selling is a lie, they just don’t care. And looks like there are enough uneducated, gullible buyers to pay for all the screwing these assclowns care to dish out at $2500+++

There always were and will be people to buy that shit. I just hope that my writing will at least prevent a few of them from buying it. I can't prevent that stuff from happening, but I reckon I try anyway for the sake of making an effort.

bbattle wrote: ↑

December 14th 2019, 5:35pm

But isn't faux patina all the rage these days?

On a new watch, it's an element of the styling. In a vintage watch, faux-patina is means of concealing a fraud.

conjurer wrote: ↑

December 14th 2019, 8:24pm

Yet another fine installment, Mr. Bloke!

A quick update to this thread: the Donkeys, amazingly, took their fail and left. The fake Cartier, which happens to be nothing more than a Movado with a partially repainted dial and a mismatched (if not adorned with a fake Cartier marking) bracelet, has been withdrawn. The link now leads to a 404 error site. The barrage was right on target.

^^^Good job, MK. Hopefully your attention kept some mook from getting screwed over.

The dial work on that bubbleback looks like it was done on a 1980 Xerox copier.

In defense of Hodinkee, as I become vintage my dial is looking increasingly mangled too :-)