Following a conversation I had with @JohnSteed, I started looking at chronometer calibers. Looking at a caliber from a watch in the recommended eBay thread,



it looks like the rotor has been changed sometime during the life of the watch since it is a different color from the movement parts. When this happens, is the only recourse available to a buyer to check the integrity of the watch the integrity of the dial? I.e., if it looks like a redial and it's obvious that the rotor or bridge with the chronometer engraving has been changed, it's a double warning.

I'm just curious if there is something else to check, or if we're deep into the eBay wild west and caveat emptor. I guess that is why others are recommending specific eBay sellers. I guess the takeaway is caveat noob like me...

 

I believe OP is referring to this watch. Previously posted in recommend watches.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/192321512555?ul_noapp=truePurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network

 

There was also a watch in the private sales section that had a chronometer on the dial, but nothing in the movement. I think I may have mixed up my images.

 

Sorry about that. My fault.

In the last image, the dial indicated it was a chronometer. The movement had the rotor replaced and the engraving on the movement should have been on the rotor or bridge, which is missing in this photo.

So the question is, is there another way to tell if a movement is chronometer rated other than the engraving?I can see a couple of things happening.

1) A watch goes in for service and the rotor/bridge is replaced with the version from the base, non-chronometer movement. Now you can't easily see that the movement is a chronometer.

2) A bad actor swaps out the rotor/bridge to make the movement look as if it's a chronometer.

For this watch in question, I'm guessing it was just a bad redial causing the mismatch, but I wanted to understand this on a deeper level, if said deeper level even exists...

 

sure does. Thanks.

 

BTW, though a bit off topic here, I would like to point out that the term chronometer for a Swiss watch means that the watch was adjusted and tested to meet chronometer specifications. It is meaningless to describe a watch as chronometer rated 50 years after it was certified. It would need to be re-certified, and most likely need a competent watchmaker to service it (dismantled, cleaned, reassembled, replace worn parts, lubricated, and also do the labor intensive adjustments to meet isochronism and positional variances required for the timepiece to meet high accuracy specifications). A 50 year old mechanical watch, whatever specifications it met 50 years ago, will be way off chronometer standards unless recently serviced.

 

Taking this one step further, Omega does not consider any of these old movements to be chronometers anymore. The timing specs on all of these only require checking to 3 positions and not 5, and the tolerances for Delta and average rates are no different than the non-chronometer versions.