Cop This!

This watch sold on eBay for $393.00.

It attracted more than 20 bids, although we dont know for sure if they were all genuine because the seller cubias57 has opted for 'private' bidding, a practice that seasoned eBayers avoid like the plague.

I'm beginning to think there is a niche market for Frankenwatches. Are there people out there who collect horological misfits like Barnham did human oddities? This one goes beyond the realms of Frankenwatch to take its place amongst those rarer abominations we'll label Frankenfreaks. Perhaps it should join a circus!

Note the star: it's pointing to ten o'clock. Maybe the re-dialler thought he was correcting for central time? The hands are ok for this vintage, but the dial finish???? It resembles uncannily some of those early Formica/Laminex patterns that covered kitchen tables and benchtops in the 1950s or the kind of decorative motifs that you'd see on pajamas in a Hong Kong night market. Uggggh!

A Cantonese chicken farmer has more design intelligence than whomever refinished this dial. In fact, the script looks as though the farmer may well have been induced to provide one of his more literate fowls to do the Constellation wording.

The seller claims the watch is 100% authentic, even though it has a calibre 562 under its gaudy bonnet. Either the rotor bridge or the wheel bridge has been replaced, who knows, but the movement is anything but authentic. The seller claims the gold is solid when he should say the bezel is sg and the lugs are gold plaque. The movement number is obscured and is given no mention in the listing.

The movement looks a tired old thing. Direct your gaze towards the balance wheel and look at the extent to which the watch has been regulated (advanced) to compensate for its lack of performance. The poor old swan neck would break with any further tweaks. This is indicative at least of a watch that is magnetised, but more likely it needs completely dissembling and given a clean and oil, or at worst there is severe wear and in need of replacement parts.

cubias57 has sold a heap of stuff on eBay and buys and sells watches - he should know better, and probably does.