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Sunday, May 3, 2020

4/30/20 Report - More on Metal Detecting Watches and Researching Watch Finds.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasruebeachesreport.blogspot.com.


Rolex Watch Found by JamminJack

Yesterday I talked a bit about finding watches.  JamminJack sent this photo of a Rolex he found.  He said he was surprised that it wasn't a knock-off.  It has a pearl face and diamond hour markers.

I'm glad he mentioned knock-offs.  Like everything else of value these days, there are plenty of counterfeits out there.

I once found a Malibu Polo Club watch that I was going to wear, so I took it to a repair shop to have a few links removed from the band.  I didn't know anything about the brand and never imagined that it was anything that anybody would counterfeit, but the dealer wouldn't work on it because it was a knock-off.

There are a lot of knock-offs, but there are tons of genuine watches that are worth a lot.  Certain Patek Phillipe watches are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, for example.  There are watches that I never heard of that are worth a lot, and I recently discovered that I should have paid more attention to some of those.

I have the following price guide on watches, but as happens with priced guides, the prices quickly become out of date.  Nonetheless, having over 1000 pages, this book provides tons of useful information, including tables of serial numbers, technical details and lots of history.  Being a 1997 edition, the prices are next to useless, but even if they are way off, you can still tell if you have something that might be valuable enough to get checked out.  It would be a pity to discard a watch worth hundreds or thousands of dollars.


At least if you find a watch you don't know anything about, there is a chance that you can find enough information to give you some idea.

Ladies Gucci Watch With Interchangeable Color Plastic Ring.

You might be surprised by the values of some watches.  Back in the late 1990s, I found several of the ladies Gucci watches like the one shown above.  Evidently a lot of them were lost.  I think maybe because the band was so rigid and the clasp not very good, but I never paid much attention to them because they seemed to be so common, however a quick check of eBay shows they can be worth over $100 in used condition.

Men's Gucci Watch Find.
I haven't even bothered to check out this Gucci watch yet, but I just saw a bunch of Gucci watches selling for close to $1000 so I guess I should get it checked out.

Back to the subject of knock-offs - there are a lot of web sites and videos that will tell you how to determine if a Rolex is real or fake.  One thing to check is the date bubble.  It should magnify 2.5 times.  Many fakes do not have a bubble or do not magnify the right amount.

Here is a web site that gives a number of clues on how to identify a real or counterfeit Rolex.


In the old days, most of us probably used an acid test kit to test our finds.  Today it is easier, and you can get more detailed information, if you just take metal items to a pawn shop or jeweler that has an XRF analyzer.  Times have changed.

It is easier to take watches to an expert too, rather than trying to do all the research yourself.   That is what I do.   There is an authorized Rolex dealer in Vero, for example.  So any Rolex, or any other watch that I suspect might be good, I take to a watch dealer or someone who should know.  Watches aren't the easiest thing to research.

Rolex watches have a serial number and you can look up the serial number to get an idea of when the watch was manufactured.  You might think that you can find the original owner by using the serial number, but Rolex won't give that information.  I tried that  more than once.

You can check TheWatchRegister.com, but that database only shows watches that were registered by the owner, so a lot of the time you will not find the serial number you are looking for.

Concerning detecting watches - I previously did some videos on how the position of a watch can affect the signal you get from your metal detector.  I used the Ace 250 on those videos.

Using an Equinox metal detector, the results were similar, but with the Equinox you can also consult the conductivity numbers.  I think I did similar tests using an Aquanaut detector oot, but don't know if I posted it.

Here are the links to the three videos showing how the position of a watch affects the metal detector signal.



If you want to find watches, it is worth practicing, as I mentioned yesterday.  I always thought I found so many watches because other people were using discrimination and missing them.  You don't want to miss watches, because they can be some of your more valuable finds.  That has certainly been true for me.
It might be also be worth reminding you about something else I wrote about in the past.  When you are trying to find the rightful owner of a find, make sure to not tell them everything.  If there is a personal inscription, for example, keep it secret so you can ask any one who claims to be the owner about the inscription.  You want to make sure you have the correct person.

I say that because I've had people try to claim finds that did not belong to them.  It happens way too often.  I did a post on that before and also did a post describing precautions to take when hunting a specific item for a person.

When searching for an specific item, make sure to get an exact description with positive identifying details before conducting the search.  If you find something better than what you were searching for the person might try to claim it.  It has happened.

In South Florida you will have more problems with people than on the Treasure Coast.  In crowded areas there will sometimes be people who follow you around trying to see anything and everything that comes up in your scoop.  In the past I described some of my favorite techniques for dealing with that too.


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The Treasure Coast surf will be decreasing from the current two to three feet.  You can expect a calm surf in the not too distant future.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net


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