My Chopard Geneve Watch

Earlier this past week I put all of my swap meet watches into a ziplock bag and took them to work. I left the bag in our break room with a note saying that if anybody wanted a watch to let me know and I'd install a battery and they could have it. The giveaway was pretty successful . . . eleven watches found homes . . . or should I say found wrists.

After retrieving the bag, I pulled one of the watches out. I could see the words "Chopard Geneve" on it so I thought I'd look it up. 

I checked eBay here and my jaw dropped. It looked like the watch could be worth $$thousands$$. Whaaaaat??!! Really??!! Holy crap.

I kept looking online for the exact model, but I just couldn't find it. 

I inspected the watch more carefully, and I began noticing things that made me wonder if it was authentic. The first thing I noticed was that the roman numerals XII and III had come unglued, and the number VI was upside down. The band too seemed suspect. Even though it might've been a replacement for the original band it seemed to be a pretty mediocre replacement for such a supposedly high-end watch. 

I began researching on how to authenticate a Chopard watch. One of the clues was that there should be a serial number marked on the back of the watch case. Not only was there no serial number on the case, the Chopard signature was upside down.



And so it was without much hesitation that I pried the watch case open to see what the inside looked like.  Any worries about possibly scratching or damaging the case were tossed aside. 

Sure enough, the insides were mostly encased in plastic. The word "Singapore" was embossed on one of the metal pieces. An authentic Chopard watch has Swiss movements, not Chinese.



So, no SCORE this time, but if I ever come across another "Chopard" watch . . .  I'll know what to be looking for!

If you have 9 more minutes to spare, here's a video for you to watch.