A cautionary tale.

Dear Abby,
I recently posted a photo of a watch here and mentioned it might be for sale in the future. A member of the forum found it on ebay and posted that info. A few members took an interest in the watch, and one in particular, I'll call him "airflow tote" to protect his identity, seemed very interested. The next day I returned home and saw the thread with my watch, but it was now filled with enlarged images of tiny scratches, spots, fabrics, etc. I wasn't sure it was my watch and began trying to understand what I was seeing.

The comments were mostly questions about whether it was "the same watch" as another listed by a different member several years ago. The words and images looked like a serious investigation was afoot. It took me about 30 mins of reading and scrolling back and forth to see what was happening. There had been a question about the originality of the hands, which are likely service replacements on an otherwise very solid example of the reference. But for some reason, mr. tote was like a dog on a bone and kept posting these huge photos, one that claimed the former owner had a photo with a particular fabric background and my photo used the SAME background.(It should be made clear that the fabrics, though a bit similar were NOT the same. The color, weave, and texture were different. Mine is a cloth I place watches on at my bench, just a scrap. The other fabric was clearly part of piece of furniture) That was clearly meant to show that there was something sketchy going on.

There were other comments as to who was the owner and maybe it was the same guy with two names. At any rate, what mr Tote neglected to tell the others in the thread was that HE had been trying to buy the watch and was communicating with me. At the same time, he seemed intent on "dirtying" the watch in the forum. And he did dirty it up. Anyone viewing that thread would think something suspect or sinister must be in play re that watch, especially if they didn't invest 30 or 40 minutes trying to understand the photos he posted.

I'm sure it was coincidence that tote went to such lengths just to show that a watch had more than one owner in its life. After all, how often does THAT happen.

One interesting last note: One of the main reasons I thought the hands were original was that I had seen the same posting of my watch in the same thread but from the former owner, not knowing it was now my watch. I saw the hands and that it had the same, less common mvmt as mine, and concluded that must have been a variant.

The moral: Be sure your watches have never had previous owners.

I get that it’s your forum, but I disagree with your assessment of that thread. I didn’t need to “back door” anything. Rather unpalatable term. The silly speculation was damaging. It was not necessary or reasonable. Your opinion is yours and inaccurate in this instance. I simply deleted photos I had posted to “prove” I was the owner then felt silly and manipulated so took them down. Try reading it again without the bias against an unknown member who rarely uses the forum. Or any other bias, for that matter. And in the grand scheme, no, not even a small deal but still worth noting that the member soiled the watch while trying to buy it. We have very different ideas of weird. Weird to me was all the fuss as to whether or not there had been two owners. Now, let the middle school piling on commence. Bye