Muddying the waters

Submitted by simpletreasures on November 26, 2011 - 10:21am

This auction has ENDED, but I'm pretty sure, Sellers that pull this crap and continue to get away with it are really going to make it tough on new collectors!

Item #320800175118

Isn't it hard enough just trying to ID the real deal?

bourg01
Posted November 26, 2011 - 11:08am

Agreed, it is a shame, and this guy "bestintime" has been around long enough that he should know better. Even I know that all military watches are stamped, marked or Id in some fashion on the caseback. When I see this kind of thing I report it to Ebay so the listing gets pulled. That's all we can do and we all have to do that or nothing will change.

FifthAvenueRes…
Posted November 26, 2011 - 11:14am

Yup,

This Seller and many of the other 'big names' botch more Bulova listings than they get correct. Some of the anomolies they come up with make Me laugh.

Elgin Doug
Posted November 26, 2011 - 11:53am

Anything with luminous block numbers and a stainless or chromed case gets called 'military', and there seem to be a number of folks 'creating' new 'Military Watches' out of old cases and such.  On the Elgin side, I've seen Swiss movements from the late 50s cased in A-11 cases, billed as "WWII Military".

And of course, anything military adds $100-$200 to the price.  It put me completely off of collecting military watches.  Too much snake oil.

bourg01
Posted November 26, 2011 - 12:16pm

In reply to by Elgin Doug

That shouldn't stop you Doug. When you know what to look for, you can't get cheated. I always ask for more pictures of the caseback, movement etc. Or I ask what is stamped on the caseback and movement. Run the movement serial # through the Elgin database for the production year. If the seller can't or won't provide the info he doesn't get a bid, pure and simple.

Let me know if you need the link to Elgin.

Elgin Doug
Posted November 26, 2011 - 7:24pm

In reply to by bourg01

Mostly it's the price that stops me!  That and my peculiar approach to collecting Elgins.  I'm a movement-based collector, rather than case-based.  I'm currently working on finding all the postwar Elgin movements, which will likely be a neverending quest, since they seem to have made very, very few of some of them! 

If you mean Wayne Schlitt's Elgin database, I think it's offline, sadly.  I haven't been able to get a response from it for some time.  That was an incredible resource for Elgin collectors!