Authentication

Have your own watchmaker check it before you pay us.

One of the two of us has every piece in hand before it is offered to anyone. We are not watchmakers, and we would rather you did not have to take our word for any of it.

Seen in hand: By one of the two owners
Your watchmaker: Welcome, before settlement
Authenticity: No time limit
Description and condition: 7 days

The strongest thing we can say is that you do not have to believe us.

Nominate a watchmaker of your own and have the piece examined before anything is settled. If they find something we missed, the sale does not go ahead. Everything else on this page is how we try to make sure they do not.

Nominate anyone you like: An independent watchmaker, a specialist you already use, or the manufacturer’s own service centre. It does not have to be someone we have heard of, and we do not have to approve them.
Before anything is settled: Either the piece goes to them first, or they join the video call and we go wherever they ask on camera. Where it goes to them, how it travels and who carries the risk on the way are agreed in writing first.
If they find something: If they find something we missed, the sale does not go ahead — no renegotiating, and no explaining it away. That is the whole point of the offer.
What it costs us: We ask nothing in return and we do not treat it as a signal that you distrust us. A piece that survives an examination we did not arrange is worth more to us than one that did not.

Ask about a piece

One of us is in the room with it.

Either the piece comes to one of us, or one of us goes to the supplier and it is on the table in front of them. We never describe, list or offer a piece from photographs someone sent us.

Seen in hand

What two people who have been buying and selling these every day since 2020 can see with a loupe and a light, and nothing beyond that.

The case: Held under a light and turned. Whether the lines are still where the factory left them, whether the bevels have been rounded off on a wheel, and what the engraving reads like. A case that has been over-polished is the first thing to look for, because everything else is easier to replace.
The dial and hands: Print, ageing and whether the set matches. Hands that have stayed white against a dial gone warm did not start out together. Where a piece is carrying a factory service dial, that is what we say it is carrying.
The bracelet and clasp: Stretch, the fit against the case, the codes stamped inside the clasp, and every link and half-link that travels with the piece counted rather than estimated.
What came with it: Box, card, service records, spare links, everything. Listed as it actually is. A watch with no card is offered as a watch with no card, never described as a full set.
Paperwork read against the watch: The reference and serial on the card are read against the piece rather than taken on trust, and a service invoice is read against what we can see. Where the two disagree we describe the watch, and we tell you they disagreed.

A specialist, where the piece calls for it

Some watches need a person who opens movements for a living. When one does, we go and get one.

When we bring someone in: Where a piece is old enough, complicated enough or expensive enough that our own eyes are not the right instrument, we take it to a watchmaker or specialist we work with. It is a judgement each time, not a stage everything passes through.
What that is worth, honestly: It is one more informed opinion, and we will tell you whose it was and what they said. It is not a certificate, and we do not sell it to you as one.
What we do not buy in: We do not buy a third-party certificate and pass it on as assurance. A document is only ever as good as the person behind it, and you would be paying for our choice of that person rather than your own.

What we do not have.

Pages like this usually list equipment. We think you are better served by knowing exactly what stands behind a description, so here is the honest version.

We do not have a workbench, a timing machine, a pressure tester or an ultraviolet lamp, and there is no watchmaker on staff. Neither of us opens a movement, and we will not publish a rate in seconds a day as though we had measured it.

What we have instead is two people who handle these watches every day, suppliers we have bought from repeatedly, specialists we can call on, and a written guarantee that costs us real money when we are wrong.

And the invitation above. A house with a workshop is asking you to trust its workshop. We are asking you to trust yours.

Also true

We turn down pieces. Where something does not add up — a story that keeps changing, a seller nobody can vouch for, paperwork that does not match the watch — we turn the piece down and keep looking. How a piece reaches us in the first place is set out on How a watch is found.

What we are bound by.

Short enough to read in full, and the same wherever they appear on this site.

Authenticity, no time limit: If a piece we sold turns out not to be authentic, we buy it back for the full amount paid. There is no time limit on it.
Description and condition, 7 days: If the reference, the year, the condition or what came with it differ from what we told you, say so within 7 days of delivery and the piece comes back for the amount paid, less shipping, provided it is returned in the condition it was sent.
Not a change-of-mind window: The 7 days cover what we got wrong. If you simply change your mind about a piece found to your brief, that is a separate conversation, and we set out how it works in writing before you commit.
Written before anything moves: What is being bought, for how much, on what conditions, and how it reaches you — all of it agreed with you in writing first. Nothing here depends on remembering a conversation.

A two-person house cannot outspend a dispute, which is the reason these are the terms rather than a longer set with more ways out of them.

Authentication, for anyone's watch

Bought from us or somewhere else, we will check your watch and set down what we find on a certificate.

How the certificate works is still being settled.

For any watch, wherever you bought it.
A certificate is not an accreditation, and it is not our buy-back guarantee, which covers the pieces we sold.

Ask about authentication

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