: So was your usual watch source and his watchmaker into the scam or
: were they fooled also?

Ben,

That is an interesting question. My answer is that I think the watchmaker was fooled. He works on Rolex but he is not certified and he is not a Rolex nut. This was a really good fake. As for my watch source...Since this morning and after speaking with several colleagues around town I believe that when he originally bought the watch he actually believed the watch was real...he believed the watchmaker. I now believe that since having he watchmaker look at the watch he sold it to someone else who returned it because they found out it was a fake...probably by taking it to the local Rolex dealer. When he showed it to me today I think he still wanted to believe but that he had serious doubts.

My feeling is that he will probably try to fob it off on somebody else. I have no idea how much he paid for it but I am sure that, in the scheme of things he paid a lot of money. He is probably more concerned about his money than his name. In this business I deal with a lot of different types of people. I don't trust anybody completely...but I trust some people more than others. I have known some of the people I buy watches from for 40 years or more. Some of them had fathers who dealt with my father. As my father said and as I like to say all of the time, you listen to what people have to say about their goods but you only believe what the goods say.

JohnCote