Together with
Do you know the lume pattern on a Rolex Submariner? How about the width of the screws on an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak? Or the lug-size on a 1930s Cartier Tank Watch?
We don’t either. Which is why we look to Bezel, the world’s top-rated marketplace for buying and selling luxury watches. As we grow more and more distant from the far flung corners of the earth where the things we own are made, it can be exceptionally difficult to prove provenance that what you’re buying is what you’re getting.
That’s especially true in the world of high-end timepieces, where four-, five-, and six-figure watches regularly trade hands among dealers, resellers, and enthusiasts and only a precious few are sophisticated enough to know if they’re real or counterfeit. Luckily for us, a handful of those knowledgeable people work at Bezel, where they personally authenticate every single watch sold on their platform.
Today, we’re looking behind the curtain to see how Bezel’s team puts a watch through its paces to prove it’s the real deal.
The Team of Experts
There aren’t any model-by-model manuals on how to spot a fake watch (at least not public ones). It’s deeply held industry knowledge that only comes from years of experience and Bezel has sourced from the best.
Ryan Chong is their Head of Watch Operations and learned his trade at Christie’s auction house before switching teams to be the Private Sales Director of Watches at Sotheby’s. He was a natural fit for Bezel’s new enterprise and, starting in 2021, built his own crew of authentication specialists from all over his time in high-end timepieces. According to Ryan, “Our team and robust process is uniquely positioned to authenticate pre-owned watches. We take great pride in going above and beyond to stand by every watch that passes through our hands.”
If you buy a watch on Bezel, at least one of them will have touched it before it reaches your door.
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The Authentication Process
Authentication starts long before a watch is ever put up for sale. Bezel requires multiple, detailed photos of each item, including setting it to a random time to confirm someone actually has the watch and not just pictures of it.
Once a watch is approved, Bezel allows it to go up for sale or auction on their platform. If it is sold, the seller overnights the watch to Bezel’s headquarters in Santa Monica, California, where Ryan and his team gets to work.
They evaluate watches for a whole host of characteristics, but the broad categories are:
Originality & Period Correctness
They examine each component—hands, face, rotor, mainspring, etc.—to make sure they are all either original to how the watch left the factory or replaced with genuine parts from the manufacturer that are correct for the time in which it was produced.
Listing Consistency
Every watch is double-checked to make sure it’s the same one as was photographed for the listing and that it’s in the exact same condition the seller presented it.
Functionality
One of the more important qualities here, does it actually work as a watch? They check the water resistance and how well a watch is keeping time based on its age or, if it’s still in the manufacturer’s warranty, the factory specifications.
Loss Registry
Finally, has the watch been listed as lost or stolen on any loss registries. There are many stories in the watch world of well-meaning buyers unknowingly purchasing a stolen watch and having to forfeit it, something that Bezel makes sure won’t happen by checking every serial against the largest database of lost and stolen watches in the world.
Shop With Confidence
All the above information is detailed in a report with Bezel’s certificate of authenticity when you receive your timepiece.
Currently, 24% of the watches sold on Bezel don’t pass their authentication standards and are returned to the seller, which should tell you the riskiness of buying anywhere on the grey market.
Have a look at Bezel for your next luxury watch, either online or in their app, where you can browse tens of thousands of watches from 90+ brands, and rest assured that whichever watch you buy will have the correct dial, hands, bracelet, and movement.
