Alright Gentlemen. I've got a vintage Universal Geneve Tri-compax for you to scrutinize.

I'm going to post pictures one bit at a time. Today you'll get the dial, then the movement, then case, etc. etc. For anyone who has read Gladwell's book Blink, you'll understand why I'm interested in doing it this way. Even if you have no idea what I'm talking about, I think this will be a fun exercise in tuning our powers of observation and for all of those who wonder how we ultimately arrive at our verdicts on whether a vintage piece is authentic or fake.

Here's the dial:

 

Another home-run UG post... all right, as regards my question in response to your Film-Pax post, I'm going with "savvy UG collector."

 

Just how "savvy" remains to be seen. But collector, certainly.

 

A couple of other pictures my research uncovered (and there aren't many black beauties in the wild):

This one from a UK based watch forum several years ago.


And this from the Wikipedia entry on Universal:

 

Agree redial, but I'm not sure I would say "good." Maybe on a scale of good to outstanding (which I believe happens to be the grading scheme at most medical schools ). On the dial in question, the hours subdial takes an unsightly chunk out of the '7' hour marker and nearly obliterates the '30' minute marker on the main dial. A dead giveaway is the identical font size of "UNIVERSAL" and "GENEVE"; "GENEVE" should always be smaller. The letter 'A' in 'UNIVERSAL' and in 'COMPAX' is pointy on top, not flat as it should be. No "SWISS". Wonky minute and hour subdial hands, as LouS notes. The moon phase hand and sweep second hand may be legit. The hour and minute hands bother me; they seem too thick near the center of the dial, and the minute hand extends all the way out to the tachy ring.

 

The thickness of the paint between the dial and the registers is made from an obvious repaint

 

Todays picture: the movement (excuse my poor photoshop skills)

Thanks to everyone who has participated thus far! No matter what your level of expertise in Universal, I welcome your participation. The point of this exercise is to learn what to look for as you evaluate a vintage piece, so varying perspectives are obviously quite valuable.

 

Agree movement seems OK. Nobody seems to know anything about UG movement numbers. Why is that?

 

Only thing I'll point out with the movement is that it appears to fit the case well. (You'll see why I point this out in due time).

 

On to today's picture: Case back and Serial Number
I'm including a large picture of the serial number in the hopes that you'll be able to see what I see over the internet; that is, there are some digits possibly missing from the end of the number. Ordinarily I'd assume that someone got a little overzealous with the polishing and wore away at a once-there serial number, but that doesn't appear to be the case here. I've looked at it under every angle with a loupe, and it really appears that the missing digits were mis-struck (either they should not have been there in the first place, or someone was hungry for lunch and did a poor job). You can just barely make out the outlines for two or three additional numbers, unfortunately not enough of an outline for me to be able to determine what the missing digits were (and I've tried pencil rubbings and the like).

 

Looks to me like somebody deliberately erased the last 3 digits of the serial number, but being from NJ I always think of that angle first.

 

It's what they did before photoshop... I think they called it "metal shop."

 

I suppose it "fell off da back of a truck".

 

Are you questioning the veracity of a Wikipedia entry? Shocking. Agree both are troubling, but I Iike the UK forum dial better than the others.

 

Today's Pic: Inside Caseback