Authentication Standards

Cartier · Tank Must · Ref. WSTA0041

Cartier hides a micro-engraved 'Cartier' signature within one of the Roman numerals (commonly the VII or the X). A missing or crude signature is a strong counterfeit indicator.

Doxa · SUB 300 · Ref. SUB 300 (1967)

Doxa passed through several corporate structures, and dials of different periods carry different signatures — including co-branded US Divers dials for the American market. The signature is a dating fact, not decoration, and a signature inconsistent with the case and movement period indicates a replaced dial.

Audemars Piguet · Royal Oak Jumbo Extra-Thin · Ref. 16202ST

Genuine Royal Oak dials use a precisely machined 'Tapisserie' guilloché (Petite on the Jumbo, Grande on 41mm). Shallow, uneven or printed 'waffle' patterns are a strong counterfeit indicator.

Audemars Piguet · Royal Oak Selfwinding · Ref. 15400ST

Genuine Royal Oak dials use a precisely machined 'Tapisserie' guilloché (Petite on the Jumbo, Grande on 41mm). Shallow, uneven or printed 'waffle' patterns are a strong counterfeit indicator.

Audemars Piguet · Royal Oak Jumbo Extra-Thin · Ref. 15202ST

Genuine Royal Oak dials use a precisely machined 'Tapisserie' guilloché (Petite on the Jumbo, Grande on 41mm). Shallow, uneven or printed 'waffle' patterns are a strong counterfeit indicator.

Audemars Piguet · Royal Oak Jumbo Extra-Thin · Ref. 5402ST

Genuine Royal Oak dials use a precisely machined 'Tapisserie' guilloché (Petite on the Jumbo, Grande on 41mm). Shallow, uneven or printed 'waffle' patterns are a strong counterfeit indicator.

Hamilton · Khaki Field · Ref. H70605731

The lacquer dots and dashes along the seconds hand spell EUREKA. They are small, raised, evenly spaced and correctly proportioned on genuine production. Counterfeits reproduce the idea rather than the message: sequences that decode to nothing, flat printing instead of raised lacquer, or uneven spacing along the hand. Decode it — the pattern is short enough to read with a loupe and it is the one feature that cannot be approximated.

H. Moser & Cie. · Endeavour · Ref. Endeavour Concept

A Concept dial has no branding by design. An examiner unfamiliar with the line may treat the absence of a wordmark as evidence that the dial has been refinished or replaced, which is exactly backwards. Establish whether the reference is a Concept before drawing any conclusion from what is not printed on the dial.

Rado · DiaStar Original · Ref. DiaStar 1 (1962)

Rado's anchor emblem is mounted to rotate: on a genuine dial it swings under gravity as the watch is tilted. It is not printed and not fixed. Tilt the watch and watch it move. A static anchor — printed, glued or seized — is either a counterfeit dial or a damaged genuine one, and the two can be told apart by looking at whether there is a pivot at all.

Tissot · Navigator · Ref. Navigator (1953)

World-time city rings are political documents. Cities appear, disappear and are renamed, and a ring naming a city under a name it did not carry in the claimed production year is either a later replacement or a reproduction. This is a rare case where an authentication check can be made against an external historical record rather than against other watches.

Frederique Constant · Classic Worldtimer Manufacture · Ref. Classic Worldtimer Manufacture

As on any worldtimer, the cities named and their spellings are period-specific and correspond to real time zones. A ring naming a city under an obsolete name, or placing one in the wrong zone, indicates a reproduction dial made by someone copying an appearance rather than a reference. Worldtimer rings are among the few dial elements checkable against a source outside horology.

Doxa · SUB 300 · Ref. SUB 300 (1967)

Professional is orange, Searambler silver, Sharkhunter black, Divingstar yellow, Caribbean blue. These are not nicknames; they are how Doxa catalogued the configurations. A watch offered as a Sharkhunter with an orange dial has been redialled, reassembled, or misdescribed, and which of those it is has to be established before anything else about the watch is assessed.

Hermès · Cape Cod · Ref. Cape Cod

On the Cape Cod the two movement families are distinguishable without opening anything and without knowing the reference. MECHANICAL executions — the TGM size, carrying the Vaucher-built H1912 — have a stamped pattern in the dial centre and the date at SIX o'clock. QUARTZ executions have a radial brushed dial and the date at THREE. Every size below TGM is quartz. So a watch offered as a mechanical Cape Cod with its date at three is either misdescribed or reassembled, and the check works from a single clear photograph.

Universal Genève · Compax · Ref. 885103

Because the case and movement are common to cheaper references, a genuine but ordinary 1960s Universal Genève chronograph fitted with a Nina Rindt dial — reproduction or transplanted — becomes worth many times what it was. This is the dominant fraud on the reference and it is not a counterfeit watch: every part except one may be genuine. Examine the dial as the primary object: printing quality and depth, register-ring definition, the precise proportions of the wordmark, the position of Swiss at the base, and whether the aging of the dial, the hands and the lume is consistent with each other and with the case.

Montblanc · 1858 · Ref. 1858 Automatic (Le Locle)

The six-pointed white emblem represents the Mont Blanc massif seen from above, and its proportions — the relative length of the points and the curvature between them — are consistent on genuine production. Counterfeit emblems are typically slightly too fat, too symmetrical or too sharply pointed. Because the same emblem appears on the writing instruments, an enormous counterfeit apparatus exists around it and the copies vary widely in quality.

Greubel Forsey · GMT · Ref. GMT

A three-dimensional rotating globe, visible from the dial side and through the case flank, completing one revolution every twenty-four hours. Its rotation is slow enough that it must be checked over time rather than observed instantly — but a printed disc or a static sphere will not move at all, which is a difference that becomes obvious within an hour.

Hermès · Arceau · Ref. Arceau (H1837 automatic)

The sloping numerals are the model's second signature. On genuine dials the lean is consistent around the dial and coordinates with the lug geometry; on copies the numerals are frequently upright at some positions and leaning at others, or the lean is applied uniformly without the rotational logic of the original. Read the numerals as a set, not individually.

Franck Muller · Crazy Hours · Ref. Crazy Hours

The out-of-sequence arrangement is a fixed pattern, not a random scatter, and it has to be consistent with the mechanism's jump programme. A dial whose numerals are scrambled differently from documented examples is a copy made by someone who understood the appearance and not the mechanism.

Hermès · Slim d'Hermès · Ref. Slim d'Hermès (H1950)

Apeloig's numerals were drawn for this watch and exist nowhere else. That makes them harder to copy than numerals taken from a common typeface, because a counterfeiter cannot obtain the letterforms — they have to be redrawn by eye, and redrawing type by eye produces characteristic errors in stroke weight, counter shape and spacing. Compare the numerals against a documented example at magnification; this is one of the better dial checks in the catalog.

Franck Muller · Cintrée Curvex · Ref. Cintrée Curvex

Franck Muller's Art Deco numerals are original artwork with deliberate irregularities — stroke weights that vary between characters, counters of specific shapes, spacing that is optically balanced rather than mechanically even. They exist in no typeface, so a copyist must redraw them by eye from photographs, and redrawn type carries characteristic errors: the irregularities get smoothed out and the result looks tidier than the original. Compare the numerals as a set against a documented example.

Rado · Integral · Ref. Integral (ceramic-link platform)

As on the DiaStar and Captain Cook, the anchor at twelve pivots. Counterfeits print it. This single check spans every Rado line in the catalog and is the most efficient first move on any Rado.

Rado · Captain Cook · Ref. R32105153

As on the DiaStar, the anchor at twelve pivots freely. It is one of very few maker's marks in the whole catalog that is mechanical rather than printed, which is exactly what makes it useful: it is cheap to verify and comparatively expensive to fake.

De Bethune · DB28 · Ref. DB28

Not a disc seen through an aperture but an actual sphere, half polished palladium and half blued steel, turning to show the phase. Its three-dimensionality is visible from any angle other than dead-on, and its two halves have distinctly different surfaces — mirror-polished metal against heat-blued metal. A flat printed or disc moonphase in this position is a different watch.

Bulova · Oceanographer · Ref. Oceanographer Devil Diver

666 is unusually revealing under magnification: the three characters should be identical to each other in weight, form and spacing, and any refinishing that is even slightly off will show as one digit sitting differently from its neighbours. Compare them to each other rather than to a reference image — the comparison is available on the dial itself.

TSIKOLIA · Seven Chronograph · Ref. TW-7

The central seconds hand carries the Tsikolia logo as its counterweight — a deliberate brand signature. Absence, or a generic counterweight, is inconsistent with a genuine Seven chronograph.

Rolex · Oyster Perpetual 34 · Ref. 114200

A 114200 may legitimately carry an Air-King dial or a plain Oyster Perpetual dial. Which one is correct for a given watch depends on when the case was made, not on which looks more familiar. Neither dial on its own is evidence of a swap: the reference spans the designation change, so both exist as factory configurations, and a service dial supplied later may also differ from what the watch left with. Establish the case's production period first and read the dial against it, rather than the other way around.

Rolex · Air-King · Ref. 114200

A 114200 may legitimately carry an Air-King dial or a plain Oyster Perpetual dial. Which is correct for a given watch depends on when the case was made, not on which looks more familiar — the reference spans the designation change, so both exist as factory configurations, and a service dial supplied later may differ from what the watch left with. Establish the case's production period first and read the dial against it.

Panerai · Luminor Marina · Ref. PAM00111

Genuine dials are built from two plates: the top plate's cut-out numerals reveal a luminous lower plate, giving depth. A single printed dial is a strong fake indicator.

Zodiac · Astrographic · Ref. Astrographic

A correct Astrographic shows its markers moving smoothly and concentrically with no wobble, and the discs themselves are effectively invisible. Discs that wobble, that show haze or scratching, or markers that drift relative to each other indicate a damaged or rebuilt mystery mechanism. On a period example this is often condition rather than authenticity, since the discs are delicate and fifty years old — but it has to be established as one or the other rather than passed over.

H. Moser & Cie. · Endeavour · Ref. Endeavour Concept

A Moser fumé dial grades smoothly and concentrically from a bright centre to a dark edge with no step, no band and no visible transition line, and the gradient is centred on the dial rather than drifting to one side. Copies show stepping where the lacquer was built up in passes, blotching where it pooled, or an off-centre gradient. Examine it under diffuse light and rotate the watch: an even gradient stays even as the light moves across it, and an uneven one announces itself.