Local Auction

[jus256]

I am a noob and am in no way an expert on any type of watch. This board has so many forums, I wasn’t quite sure where to post this topic. I’ve seen noobs get handed their a-- for starting threads in the wrong forum. Looking at some of the other topics here, I assume the Watch Out forum is the place to post questions about authenticating.

There is a local bi-monthly auction that I started monitoring last summer. I noticed every so often there would be a Rolex or two listed among the items. I know fakes are readily available. Because people seem to be paying more money than I would be willing to risk without being able to authenticate the watch myself, I haven’t come close to bidding on any watch in this auction.

I stumbled upon this forum by accident. I wanted to post a couple of pics in order to get the board’s opinion. I don’t have any model information for the men’s watch. The only thing I have is the selling price which was $800 US. When I went to view some other items in the auction in person, I decided to take a look at the watch. Like I said, I can’t authenticate any watch of any brand. I flipped the watch over to look at the back. The guy behind the counter told me that all Rolex watches will have the magnification in the crystal over the date and will have the green holographic sticker on the back. I had no idea if that was true. For all I know, the employees of the company who run this auction are putting fake watches and jewelry into these auctions because there are suckers who don’t know any better. Looking at the back, I would have sworn there was some sort of oxidation on the underside of the band in the gold strip in the band. It was pretty small but it didn’t seem to scratch off. That seemed odd because I always thought Rolex watches were made of 18K gold. Realistically it could have been anything. At that point I dismissed it as a fake and handed it back to the guy to put in the case. I was surprised when it went for almost $800. By the attached pictures, is there enough information here to dismiss this as a fake? These are the pictures taken by the auction house. If I had known this board was around last week, I could have taken some better pictures with my LG G2 phone.














The second watch in the auction was this thing. I didn't view this in person but because the pictures are on the website, I decided to include them. Someone paid $200 US for this watch.