Thanks for giving Jose Perez credit. Not everyone did that as clearly as they should. He’s been calling out Panerai and others for years. His articles are a great mix of sleuthing and sensationalism.
They are. He can sometimes go into attack mode for no reason and I wish he'd give that up because his actual factual content is fantastic. I can think of at least one other person (ok more than one) who has valid historical points but insists on framing them in the context of personal attacks rather than in the spirit of sharing knowledge and we are all the worse for it.
Interesting. I guess I only see his posts when they link to articles. Or maybe these the only ones I pay any attention to. Facts always speak for themselves. And, when things feel personal, people stop giving full credibility.
Thanks for the mention Jack. Writing it up felt like navigating something of a minefield - and on the subject of names, I think what I and others found most confusing was Omega’s willingness to identify one of the three (to call it jigsaw identification is generous in the extreme) and not the other two. Leading to the not unreasonable assumption that the former is also the architect of the whole scheme, which seems... unlikely. Better lawyers, a friend of mine simply said, and maybe he’s right. But very odd comms from the brand.
"Of course, fakes in the auction world are hardly confined to just watches and it’s sort of hilarious that we’re all clutching our pearls when there are much more expensive and sophisticated instances from the world of wine, fine art, and even furniture and stamp collecting... We should not, if you ask me, expect a higher moral standard in vintage watches than in vintage wine or sketchy Leonardos”
Yes we bloody should. Because *we* have the ability to influence the moral standards of *our* little area of interest. You genuinely think it "hilarious" that people who are interested in watches tend to focus on, well, subject matter relating to watches? You believe that because higher value fraud is being perpetrated in other areas - areas in which many watch collectors will have next to no interest in whatsoever - we are somehow worthy of ridicule for our passion?
Moral standards transcend money.
It’s down to us. And yes. That absolutely includes all those “professional” journalists and editors at the major blogs.
In fact, it should start with them.
Perhaps if those blogs cared as much about moral standards as they did making money, you wouldn’t have to rely on an "irascible, argumentative pain in the ass" to do their damn jobs for them.
Hi TGS – my point was that we should recognize the persistence and ubiquity of the problem and evaluate extraordinary claims cautiously, and recognize that since the problem is endemic in every other domain of collecting, it is unrealistic to expect watch collecting to be problem free. Our "little" area of interest is for better or worse, not so little any more and the more money there is to be made, the more incentive there is to produce convincing fakes. I'd like it as much as anyone else if the watch collecting world was a smaller and less expensive place but that genie is out of the bottle and is not going back in.
No, you didn't say that it is "unrealistic to expect watch collecting to be problem free." Neither did I proclaim that I expected it to be, and neither did I challenge you in any way on that nuance. Indeed, I spend several hours every week hunting down and documenting problem watches at auction - I'm well aware of how ubiquitous the problem is.
You said - "We should not, if you ask me, *expect a higher moral standard* in vintage watches than in vintage wine or sketchy Leonardos."
I disagree. Not only should we expect it, we should be demanding it.
You laud the fact that your previous employer called out the situation regarding fake PN Daytonas in an article written 9 years ago. Tell me. In the 9 years since that article was written, how many times has Hodinkee publicly called out a misrepresented watch at an auction *before* it was sold? Now compare that with the number of times in those 9 years that Hodinkee has published paid-for editorial promoting the exact same auctions and watches that are under discussion.
In comparison, I publicly call out examples of misrepresented watches at auction in my little niche every single week. But then, I'm not getting paid by the auction company to promote their wares.
The fundamental reason why this industry has such lax moral standards is because those most well positioned to set and uphold high standards - those very same people who are telling us that we should think ourselves lucky we're not in the art or wine collecting communities, and that this is just something we should sit back and accept - choose to line their pockets instead.
From. the article: "The fact that this sort of thing is pervasive, has always been pervasive, and will continue to be pervasive, does not of course mean that we should simply ignore it, but it does mean that we could probably do better than just accepting provenance as proclaimed by sellers at face value." And good for you for publicly calling out examples of misrepresented watched. By the way I've never been paid by an auction company either.
"that genie is out of the bottle and is not going back in"
This is interesting ... My wife's grandmother collected Victorian furniture and china in the 80s - early 90s. An impressive, on-loan-to-a-museum type collection. With hindsight, potentially she *was* the market because it's worth about 10% of what she paid for it now 40 years later. Sports cards had 2-3 boom and bust cycles. Seems possible to me that - narrowly - these damaged dial vintage sports watches could easily bust and - more broadly - I could see interest for watches wane over a generation from these peaky levels today.
They certainly could. Collectibles can be awfully volatile. I'm not a car guy per se but I have been to a few vintage car shows (Pebble, Quail) and by and large the big winners are cars that are more or less factory-fresh in appearance despite being close to a hundred years old. Restoration even if excellent and fully disclosed is still anathema to vintage watch collectors; this despite the fact that dials (for instance) were routinely re-finished or replaced when watches were serviced. I used to collect vintage fountain pens and I waited for years for a boom in prices that never happened, although at least I didn't have to suffer through a bust, either 😂
Thanks Jack for this article. I think true haute horlogerie does still have the scarcity of craft component in “luxury”. I think few could fake a Romain gauthier or a greubel forsey precisely because the cost and returns to doing so would be so poor. The reason vintage Rolex or Omega is so ripe for this sh*t is that they are rather pedestrian mass produced watches that were tools that collectors now value highly when they miraculously exist in NOS condition.
Yeah, the whole question of where the added value is in luxury watches is an interesting one. You're quite right that attempts at real, thorough, traditional high end finishing, especially in simpler watches, is mostly an independent's game these days. And your point about Rolex and Omega is well taken – I don't know that I would go with "pedestrian" necessarily, but certainly they were mass produced and that does lend itself to Frankenwatches and outright fakes. Nobody is going to make a superfake of a Simplicity (at least I don't think they would) or, for that matter, a Patek 3939.
"The brown tone is not only rich and vivid, but it is also incredibly even throughout."
Said differently ... it was baked in an oven. Which I think is what's so frustrating about the dealer-fication of the vintage watch market. It's not just frankens. It's fraud. Talk to any old time dealer ... real-deal tropical dials were rare and more often the result of water damage / rust. They were uneven - with highlights and spotting. Take a look at William Massena's examples - specifically the 145022-69 which is the lightest one ... rusted through the sub-dial center posts. I actually like the look but just wish they were treated more like mods vs. some frothy hyperbole we get today (e.g., *rare*, gorgeous, unique patina, milky Hershey's bar).
Apropos of this, I wrote to the PR's of Phillips, Christies, Antiquorum et al asking what steps their experts take to avoid this sort of thing. As you'll imagine, none were prepared to offer a comment
What Clymer accomplished with Hodinkee was a massive success. But he deserves no credit for saying that there sure are a lot of fakes. Mainstream people in the watch industry have said that before him and after him. Ironically the same auction houses that have moved fake or at least questionable watches rely on the idea that “there sure are a lot of fakes” to justify their use. “You better rely on our expertise, there sure are a lot of fakes.” What Perez does, not just repeating that “there sure are a lot of fakes”, but saying “that one is a fake”, differentiates him from what anyone in the mainstream watch media has the courage or skill to do.
Your last sentence is the meat of your piece. IT is the industrialization of luxury, the falsehoods of products that products to mirror true rare luxury that is at the bottom of all of this. One fake watch or paining is nothing compared to whole companies and industries that are doing just that. Thanks Jack, and I am glad I found you once again. You are special.
Thanks for giving Jose Perez credit. Not everyone did that as clearly as they should. He’s been calling out Panerai and others for years. His articles are a great mix of sleuthing and sensationalism.
They are. He can sometimes go into attack mode for no reason and I wish he'd give that up because his actual factual content is fantastic. I can think of at least one other person (ok more than one) who has valid historical points but insists on framing them in the context of personal attacks rather than in the spirit of sharing knowledge and we are all the worse for it.
Interesting. I guess I only see his posts when they link to articles. Or maybe these the only ones I pay any attention to. Facts always speak for themselves. And, when things feel personal, people stop giving full credibility.
Thanks for the mention Jack. Writing it up felt like navigating something of a minefield - and on the subject of names, I think what I and others found most confusing was Omega’s willingness to identify one of the three (to call it jigsaw identification is generous in the extreme) and not the other two. Leading to the not unreasonable assumption that the former is also the architect of the whole scheme, which seems... unlikely. Better lawyers, a friend of mine simply said, and maybe he’s right. But very odd comms from the brand.
Perhaps naming him scares others loose and they know he’ll flip on them to reduce his penalty. (But that might just be years of American cop shows).
"Of course, fakes in the auction world are hardly confined to just watches and it’s sort of hilarious that we’re all clutching our pearls when there are much more expensive and sophisticated instances from the world of wine, fine art, and even furniture and stamp collecting... We should not, if you ask me, expect a higher moral standard in vintage watches than in vintage wine or sketchy Leonardos”
Yes we bloody should. Because *we* have the ability to influence the moral standards of *our* little area of interest. You genuinely think it "hilarious" that people who are interested in watches tend to focus on, well, subject matter relating to watches? You believe that because higher value fraud is being perpetrated in other areas - areas in which many watch collectors will have next to no interest in whatsoever - we are somehow worthy of ridicule for our passion?
Moral standards transcend money.
It’s down to us. And yes. That absolutely includes all those “professional” journalists and editors at the major blogs.
In fact, it should start with them.
Perhaps if those blogs cared as much about moral standards as they did making money, you wouldn’t have to rely on an "irascible, argumentative pain in the ass" to do their damn jobs for them.
Hi TGS – my point was that we should recognize the persistence and ubiquity of the problem and evaluate extraordinary claims cautiously, and recognize that since the problem is endemic in every other domain of collecting, it is unrealistic to expect watch collecting to be problem free. Our "little" area of interest is for better or worse, not so little any more and the more money there is to be made, the more incentive there is to produce convincing fakes. I'd like it as much as anyone else if the watch collecting world was a smaller and less expensive place but that genie is out of the bottle and is not going back in.
No, you didn't say that it is "unrealistic to expect watch collecting to be problem free." Neither did I proclaim that I expected it to be, and neither did I challenge you in any way on that nuance. Indeed, I spend several hours every week hunting down and documenting problem watches at auction - I'm well aware of how ubiquitous the problem is.
You said - "We should not, if you ask me, *expect a higher moral standard* in vintage watches than in vintage wine or sketchy Leonardos."
I disagree. Not only should we expect it, we should be demanding it.
You laud the fact that your previous employer called out the situation regarding fake PN Daytonas in an article written 9 years ago. Tell me. In the 9 years since that article was written, how many times has Hodinkee publicly called out a misrepresented watch at an auction *before* it was sold? Now compare that with the number of times in those 9 years that Hodinkee has published paid-for editorial promoting the exact same auctions and watches that are under discussion.
In comparison, I publicly call out examples of misrepresented watches at auction in my little niche every single week. But then, I'm not getting paid by the auction company to promote their wares.
The fundamental reason why this industry has such lax moral standards is because those most well positioned to set and uphold high standards - those very same people who are telling us that we should think ourselves lucky we're not in the art or wine collecting communities, and that this is just something we should sit back and accept - choose to line their pockets instead.
From. the article: "The fact that this sort of thing is pervasive, has always been pervasive, and will continue to be pervasive, does not of course mean that we should simply ignore it, but it does mean that we could probably do better than just accepting provenance as proclaimed by sellers at face value." And good for you for publicly calling out examples of misrepresented watched. By the way I've never been paid by an auction company either.
You continue to refuse to engage with the key points I'm raising, which is of course your prerogative. Happy to leave it there.
By the way, I've never taken a paycheck from a company that places paid for editorials and social media for auction companies (either?).
You might not be aware of this but a media company based in the USA is required by the FTC to disclose sponsored or native content.
Yes I am aware of it. What’s the relevance to the discussion?
"that genie is out of the bottle and is not going back in"
This is interesting ... My wife's grandmother collected Victorian furniture and china in the 80s - early 90s. An impressive, on-loan-to-a-museum type collection. With hindsight, potentially she *was* the market because it's worth about 10% of what she paid for it now 40 years later. Sports cards had 2-3 boom and bust cycles. Seems possible to me that - narrowly - these damaged dial vintage sports watches could easily bust and - more broadly - I could see interest for watches wane over a generation from these peaky levels today.
They certainly could. Collectibles can be awfully volatile. I'm not a car guy per se but I have been to a few vintage car shows (Pebble, Quail) and by and large the big winners are cars that are more or less factory-fresh in appearance despite being close to a hundred years old. Restoration even if excellent and fully disclosed is still anathema to vintage watch collectors; this despite the fact that dials (for instance) were routinely re-finished or replaced when watches were serviced. I used to collect vintage fountain pens and I waited for years for a boom in prices that never happened, although at least I didn't have to suffer through a bust, either 😂
Great read Jack! I appreciate the last paragraph and its truth.
Cheers!
Thanks Jack for this article. I think true haute horlogerie does still have the scarcity of craft component in “luxury”. I think few could fake a Romain gauthier or a greubel forsey precisely because the cost and returns to doing so would be so poor. The reason vintage Rolex or Omega is so ripe for this sh*t is that they are rather pedestrian mass produced watches that were tools that collectors now value highly when they miraculously exist in NOS condition.
Yeah, the whole question of where the added value is in luxury watches is an interesting one. You're quite right that attempts at real, thorough, traditional high end finishing, especially in simpler watches, is mostly an independent's game these days. And your point about Rolex and Omega is well taken – I don't know that I would go with "pedestrian" necessarily, but certainly they were mass produced and that does lend itself to Frankenwatches and outright fakes. Nobody is going to make a superfake of a Simplicity (at least I don't think they would) or, for that matter, a Patek 3939.
"The brown tone is not only rich and vivid, but it is also incredibly even throughout."
Said differently ... it was baked in an oven. Which I think is what's so frustrating about the dealer-fication of the vintage watch market. It's not just frankens. It's fraud. Talk to any old time dealer ... real-deal tropical dials were rare and more often the result of water damage / rust. They were uneven - with highlights and spotting. Take a look at William Massena's examples - specifically the 145022-69 which is the lightest one ... rusted through the sub-dial center posts. I actually like the look but just wish they were treated more like mods vs. some frothy hyperbole we get today (e.g., *rare*, gorgeous, unique patina, milky Hershey's bar).
https://forums.timezone.com/index.php?t=tree&goto=5637194&rid=0
I mean lest we forget, "incredible" does literally mean "hard to believe" 😀
Apropos of this, I wrote to the PR's of Phillips, Christies, Antiquorum et al asking what steps their experts take to avoid this sort of thing. As you'll imagine, none were prepared to offer a comment
What Clymer accomplished with Hodinkee was a massive success. But he deserves no credit for saying that there sure are a lot of fakes. Mainstream people in the watch industry have said that before him and after him. Ironically the same auction houses that have moved fake or at least questionable watches rely on the idea that “there sure are a lot of fakes” to justify their use. “You better rely on our expertise, there sure are a lot of fakes.” What Perez does, not just repeating that “there sure are a lot of fakes”, but saying “that one is a fake”, differentiates him from what anyone in the mainstream watch media has the courage or skill to do.
Your last sentence is the meat of your piece. IT is the industrialization of luxury, the falsehoods of products that products to mirror true rare luxury that is at the bottom of all of this. One fake watch or paining is nothing compared to whole companies and industries that are doing just that. Thanks Jack, and I am glad I found you once again. You are special.