: I continue to believe that we will get to the "end of the
: internet" before we get to the end of the fake Heuers . . .

Jeff, as you know I am half in the pocketwatch world and have been there for a long time. In that world people have been putting together "Frankenwatches" for a very long time. This weekend at an NAWCC Mart show in Lexington, KY I ran into a friend who had in his display case a watch I saw him buy at a reputable auction 7 or 8 years ago. This watch in its original state would represent the absolute pinnacle of American watchmaking and in most opinions as fine a time only pocket watch as has ever been made....anywhere. The trouble is that it was assembled out of pieces of several watches. All of the parts are from the same grade of watch although there are a couple of minor parts which were fabricated by some master watch faker at some point in this monstrosity's history. The watch is in a very heavy and very proper 18k case and looks absolutely stunning. The problem is that most American watches had all or part of the watch serial number stamped on the underside of most of the major components such as bridges, balance etc and this watch's parts don't match up. On a good day, in its original condition the watch might be worth about as much as a Chronomatic Monaco. If you know about what is wrong with it is maybe worth a third of that for the gold case and the parts or just because it is still a thing of beauty.

Luckily the guy who bought it at the auction (a noob at the time) is an honest man....but who knows what happens when his estate gets sold.

JohnCote