[BundyBear]

The investigator in me keeps coming out and this is starting to smell as if I'm standing in the middle of a cow pasture in the summer.

How does the part bolded above fit in with what the OP said in his first post where he said:

"Last summer, the guy I sold the watch to contacted me to let me know that I had sold him a fake watch. I was shocked, obviously, and pressed him for more details. He had taken the watch in for a service, and the service department notified him that it was an inauthentic item with an Asian movement."

What is it that Judge Judy always says "If you are telling the truth then you don't need a good memory"?

I'm not sure what the scam is, but there is one.

Agree with you @cb1111 that we all smell a rat here and this reeks of cow manure to high heaven.

Of course, the watch was originally sold as authentic and along the way, someone opened it, four times, mind you and swapped out the original movement.

Sometimes the simplest explanation is the answer.

Whatever statute of limitations being referenced is useless in this case because of the passage of time and the OP could not prove conclusively that he was sold a fake by the pawn shop. This is unlike the OP's buyer who proved it was a fake and got his money back.

 

[BundyBear]

For what its worth, I'm new to luxury watches but that pip on the bezel looks off..
::
I'd find a different AD and take it there to see if they can give you an opinion.

Much too long, no need to read all that. I could tell from the first picture it is a fake. Period.

You can't compare with your in house MT movement as it is different.

 

[BundyBear]

<snip>
If I'm out $2000, so be it-- that's better to me than sticking it to someone that I'm 95% sure is innocent. My ideal situation would be to identify it as a fake from the get-go via the serial number, as that would clear up all doubt....

That photo you posted in post #1 of this thread. Is that photo of the watch from the time you bought it? i.e. your wrist shot?

 

[BundyBear]

My wife is sick of me telling her this story and picking her brain for investigative insight. A couple of clarifications:
.

Yup. My wife would say "go sort your own sheeet out"

 

[BundyBear]

Dogbert-- the pic I posted is current, I took it right before my original post. The picture below I took when I first received the watch:

View attachment 14868343

Yeah, that for sure is 100% fake.

I asked if you have a picture from the very first time when you bought the watch from the buyer who bought the watch from pawn shop. If you can upload a picture from that time, we can call it as real or fake. In fact, you need to compare the watch that left your hands and this one you got back.

The order of things is just getting out of hand; to help me understand, it has done the rounds like this:

Unknown Man #1 --> sells to Pawn Shop --> Pawn Shop --> sells to Unknown Man #2 --> sells to OP --> OP sells to Buyer --> Buyer tries to trade with Torneau, is rejected --> buyer sells back to OP.

Let me ask you a few questions:
1) Do you have pictures to compare the watch before you sold to buyer and after you got back from buyer?
2) Do you have documentation that indeed Torneau rejected the watch or was it based on "good faith" and "trust"?

If, you can show us that the original watch you got from Unknown Man #2 is authentic, then you have narrowed down the list of suspects. Likewise, if the original watch you bought from Unknown Man #2 is fake, you have also narrowed down the list of suspects, which is either UNknwon Man #1, Pawn Shop or Unknown Man #2. In all likelihood, it is unlikely the Pawn Shop is smart enough to source fake parts to sell so I would eliminate them from the equation. It is more likely that they cannot spot a fake - that's all.

 

[BundyBear]

Also, here are some of the pictures from the original Watchuseek Classifieds thread that Unknown Man #2 posted. The serial number matches the serial on the service receipt and the watch I currently have in-hand:

View attachment 14868445

View attachment 14868449

If the photos are what you said they are, then you can concentrate on Unknown Man #2. Is he a regular here?

 

[BundyBear]

Does the balance cock have the Triovis regulateur? The clone 2824's fitted to Tudor fakes does not have this. It's easy to change the part in the keyless works that has the date setting position so you can't be certain a Tudor is genuine/fake just because there's no date setting position. The Triovis device is THE acid test.

You're right, this is probably the best test and puts it beyond a point of doubt. I thought the OP had posted a picture of the movement in the Rolex fake busters thread and gone back to look at it but he seemed to have removed it.

However, everyone else has already pointed out what is wrong with the watch, case, bezel, etc.

 

[BundyBear]

All, I have found out who the Unknown Man #2 is. Low post count, got to 100 and put the watch up for sale.

Lesson #1 - buy the seller. Make sure seller has good reputation and respected poster here. Shame this one.

OP, I hope that you get a satisfactory resolution on this and I hope your wife isn't going to make you wash dishes for the next 10 years. :-d

 

[BundyBear]

<snip>&#8230; While I believe that we should explain the most obvious problems with a photo of a counterfeit (i.e. wrong pip, hands, whatever), I do agree that we shouldn't point out all the flaws - for good reasons. The counterfeiters know exactly what is wrong with their products, but by knowing what a customer (or investigator) is looking for, they know how to photograph the product to obscure the flaws..

Good point. One of the reasons why I don't elaborate too much about the flaw as counterfeiters than know how to improve the product since it is easily spotted.

<snip>Had the OP posted the pictures in the fake busters forum, then he would have had his answer before he bought.

This also explains why we are so hard on speedposters..

OP had informed me that he let his guard down and person was a member of few years' standing but low post count. Just a little over a hundred at the moment, 123 to be exact and the last dozen was from his sales listing. In my opinion, the bumping of sales listing should not be counted in the overall post count.

 

[BundyBear]

It depends on the contract between the AD and the watchmaker. Watchmakers employed by an AD would, most likely, be bound by the agreement between the AD and Rolex - "thou shall not touch counterfeits". An independent watchmaker can work on what they want, but the parts may not fit and every watchmaker I know would say "hey, just a note, I can't give you a guarantee on my work because this is a counterfeit"

Here's the deal: whether or not they are willing to work on counterfeits aside, no watchmaker should work on a fake without notifying the owner: "You know this is a fake, right?" and they should also note this on the receipt they provide for the service! Write or stamp REPLICA or something similar on the receipt, so that it can't be used as "proof" of authenticity!!

LOL. Here we are arguing over whether it was right for the Rolex/Tudor AD to work on the watch. According to the OP, the AD sent the watch to a watchmaker down the street to fix the crown. He got charged for a new crown and repairs. For all we know, all that watchmaker did was to re-insert the fake crown and stem back into the watch and he got charged for a new one by the AD. The OP didn't know he had a fake and he probably wouldn't even know if he got the same crown back. Which might explain why the crown fitted but we are all here thinking that the AD fitted a genuine part in an Asian movement.

 

[BundyBear]

What a headache and a terrible situation to be in. Things like this should be highlighted in a sticky. There are dozens of watches a week that come up and this one is clearly a reasonable fake with the ceramic balls in the bracelet etc so it would be good for first time posters to realise just how good these scams are. I think 90% of watch newbies think fake watches are £10 turkey specials....

The trouble with this is that the OP himself is not active on WUS and he bought the watch also from an inactive member with very low post count.

There are many threads on fakes and people being scammed but it keeps happening because newbies rush into it without staying here long enough and they won't know the modus operandi of scammers.

If the OP had posted it in the fake busters section before he bought the watch, then he could be saved a lot of headache now.

 

[BundyBear]

<snip>
I absolutely was not prepared for the high quality of fakery in the watch world, as this was a minor interest that I was just getting into at the time. I honestly felt that by buying from someone posting the watch openly on this forum, someone with a normal FB account, whose info/profession/etc. was easily obtained via Google, etc. that I would be safe...
::
-- I admit that laziness on my part contributed to the problem. As soon as I received the watch and had the crown issue, I should have escalated it with the seller immediately. I did contact the seller right away, but when he said he never had an issue with it I moved on.

Did you get any response from Unknown Man #2 - the guy who sold you the watch?