The Watch Expert
Secret Tools
Now Available

Fabrice Gueroux - French Watch Expert

Books on Watches

The 2020 Ultimate Identification Skills

By Fabrice Gueroux

A comprehensive guide to identifying fake watches. Buying a previously owned watch can be a risky purchase. Fake watches are legion on the internet and unscrupulous vendors are increasingly using this market place to sell their fraudulent products. Few second-hand watch websites call upon true experts and purchases are increasingly made at the buyer’s risk. How to tell a true watch from a fake?

The 2010 Identification Reference Book

By Fabrice Gueroux

How can you tell a fake watch from a real one? Where are fakes made? What grades of quality can one find among so-called “replicas”? How can one buy a watch on the internet? How can one avoid fraudulent copies? These are just some of the questions to which any wristwatch enthusiast needs to find answers in an era when counterfeiting luxury products has become an industry in its own right.

Online Video Course

See With the Eye
of the Watch Expert

Meet Your Instructor in a Masterclass

The only Watch Expert Masterclass available ever. You will learn how to see with the eye of the watch expert. An 80 minutes video where you will have the opportunity to discover all the secrets of counterfeit watches and get the vital know-how in order to be able to identify a watch. See two counterfeits of high end and top brand watches fully disassembled and enter the world of real watch experts…

How Much Is A Rolex?
The Rolex Price Guide

A Masterclass making it possible for YOU to learn from an international watch expert

Watch Masterclass as much as you needed.

Full demonstrations of how to identify watches.

Computer, mobile, Tablet and TV Screen.

About collecting Rolex watches

Numerous articles circulate on the web distributing thousands of information on the different Rolex dials, inserts, bracelets etc., that can be found on a collector Rolex. Unfortunately, some of these articles tend to create confusion among a new generation of collectors (and among more “newbies” collectors in many cases). 

The history of antique timepieces has never been presented or confirmed by Rolex  and a “parallel history” has been rewritten by collectors/dealers and is now more or less accepted, considering the reactions of collectors on social networks, in amateur meetings, and in my private discussions with amateurs.

I do not wish to question any existing information, but clarify the context of this market and to put certain things into perspective, in particular by underlining a basic point: the past has already shown that when the information disseminated by different vectors does not emanate from the source (the Rolex factory itself), no one is protected from the fact that one day or another, the factory will drop a few “truths”. We could then potentially witness a situation where the value of a piece preciously preserved in a safe would considerably decrease, to the dismay of amateurs and collectors who have been well “informed”.

The number of collectors since 1995 has continued to grow, from the true vintage Rolex watches enthusiast to nowadays new generation of “investors” wishing to recycle a bank “home savings plan” that has proven its uselessness for years. But the evolution of the vintage enthusiast public, whatever the reasons for its infatuation, has brought another significant factor. Watches that had had only one owner, careful and conscious of their value (a consideration that today seems to have practically disappeared) have seen their owners change three to four times, or even more, in the last twenty years. The result is strongly felt if one looks at the state of the watches currently on the market, which are nevertheless, at the same time, constantly increasing in value.

One of my main purpose as an expert is to put things in their proper place and bring an objective point of view on the type of product that can be worthy. A question arises: is it better to buy a so-called “new old stock watch” with “all original”, rearranged from the lugs to the bezel, rebuilt with the “right” parts, or a worn watch that can tell a story? There are many problems with this question, but the one we will highlight here is: what do we mean by a totally original Rolex watch? Is it a watch that has not moved since it was purchased or a watch with parts matching more or less its production date, according to the agreements in force between experts, collectors and players in this market? This question is not innocent because the market today offers more watches that have been updated than watches that have not moved since they were released on the market.

Most of the information found today concerns details on the various pieces and we often forget to talk about the main thing, namely the watch and its history. This is one of the services I offer as an expert, in order to share some of the knowledge gathered over the years on our favorite watches, simple stories most of the time…

You can contact me if you need information of just want to share with me about Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe or any other collection watches.

Fabrice Gueroux

A Short Story Of The two
Most Wanted Watches Brands

Rolex

In 1905, Hans Wilsdorf, a German watchmaker, born in Kulmach, Bavaria, on March 22, 1881, and his brother-in-law, Alfred Davis, founded the Wilsdorf & Davis company in London, in the jewelry and watchmaking district. In 1908 Wilsdorf registered the brand Rolex and in 1919 decided to locate the company in Geneva where it took the name of Rolex S.A. Wilsdorf & Davis was the original name of what would later become The Rolex Watch Company.

Originally they imported movements and dials from Switzerland ordered from Hermann Aegler in England and installed them in quality cases built by Dennison and others. These first wristwatches were then sold to watchmakers who put their own names on the crown. The very first watches from Wilsdorf and Davis were usually stamped W&D on the inside of the case back.

Audemars Piguet

Audemars Piguet is now the iconic Royal Oak? However, an entire article should (and will) be dedicated in a future section to let you discover the watchmaking marvels of the Manufacture before the history of the Royal Oak. It was in 1972 that Audemars Piguet launched its legendary watch at the Swiss Watchmaking Show in Basel. The gamble was almost insane. And that year, reactions were very mixed.

In the 1960s, the arrival of quartz watches heralded unprecedented Japanese domination. Since the main goal of watchmaking was precision, it is notorious that these watches were considered to be of superior quality at the time. The more precise a Swiss watch was, with many functions, the more expensive it was. Unfortunately, quartz was “flawless” and gave a perfectly accurate time…