Hi all,

recently i bought a bezel from a long time member here on OF. It was sold as an original Omega Speedmaster Professional bezel.
I didnt really scrutinize it upon arrival, since at the first glance it looked good. Today i decided to check it out closer under a magnifying glas and compare it to the bezel of my FOIS.

I hope i am just paranoid but you never know, these days the fakers are getting better and better.


The things i notice are:
1) the Accent in Letter E in the word TACHYMETRE is touching the Letter E.
2) the printing of numbers and dots under magnification has some minor imperfections, like the edge of the Dot under 60.
(but as we all know, if you zoom far enough you will allways see something..)


Thats my original FOIS bezel for comparison:

FOIS on the left (Numbers 2 and 7 in 275 looks more curved):

Then i googled for Speedmaster Bezels, i found a few dealers, who offer reproduction bezels, and they also have an Accent touching the letter E in word TACHYMETRE. That was the trigger when i started doubt originality.
What are the other tells?

I am not trying to blame the member (if it was done unintentionally) by the way, it is possible he was fooled the same way.
I just wanted to check with the more knowledgeble members here what they think.

Thanks!

 

I’m no expert but own and have held several Speedmasters and I agree with your concerns.

 

I don't love the way it looks, plus if it was sold as new in package or brand-new condition it shouldn't have any of those quality problems.

 

the font difference on the 7 is worrisome, but I am not up on the bezel differences on ones made in the last decade. At the very least it is from a different batch then yours and in the future might be considered wrong as that is not the variation that it shipped with.

 

The more i look at the details, the more i become concerned..

 

I am no watch expert, but when I compare the bezel to new Speedmaster pictures, it seems the Dot above the "190" is more to the right on your bezel than on the new watch bezels.

On a new Speedmaster watch, the Dot looks like the Dot on the letter "i" right above the "1" in "190".

Not sure if this Dot above the 190 changed over the years or if it is a difference you should notice in your bezel.

Here is a picture of the 190 on a new bezel.



Edit: I did some checking of Speedmaster pictures on the internet and the older DON bezels did have the Dot above the 190 a bit to the right of the "1" digit. But, checking the DNN bezels since 1970, it appears they have the Dot above the 190 directly above the "1".

 

Ok, here are some pictures of a bezel I have - it isn't actually alised like it looks in the pics - that's artifacts from the fact that I have no macro lens and I'm using my cell phone with a magnifier app:



To me, this looks somewhat better than the one the OP is asking about. But it comes from this watch:

 

I dont want to help fakers to point out the details with this thread. but i guess it is clear somehow that the bezel is not original.

 

Just wanted to mention that the seller is an honest gentleman and offered a refund

 

What's odd is that looking at the bezel on my Alpha I am not picking up on any tells that it isn't genuine, which is kind of scary.

 

Maybe it is genuine

Just kidding I believe i see a few tells on your photos.

 

Hi @Eve did you buy the bezel on its own from OF parts for sale? Recently? Could you ask the seller where he got the bezel from?

It's hard to tell with some evidence of service bezel variations, but I might be in a similar position and it might be related to someone on ebay who has been selling what he describes as genuine bezels for a while...

 

Hi, yes i bought the bezel on its own here recently on OF.
The seller bought it on ebay. It seems it was sold as genuine.

 

Ok I think the source might be this guy: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/254698932433Purchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network

This seller has had this item running for 18 months or so, I know a large number have been sold and stock replenished. If you check images for the item you can see the exact same features e.g. touching accent, simpler 2s etc...

 

Just to add, the description for this item has explicitly said genuine / old omega stock throughout. I'd welcome thoughts from the experts on how true this is.

 

It is possible thats the guy, maybe the seller here can confirm. But he did mention it was a US deal.

 

Disappointing if it is, he seems to be an established seller and watch dealer. Also seems to be selling the same item through a business website: https://www.watchcompany.com/items/...R-Caliber-861-BEZEL-TACHYMETRE-145022-1450022

 

Yes that was the seller

I bought the bezel for the project I had but as you may know I managed to get a nice DNN for it.

I did ask the seller if I could return it but he refused just because I had found a different one which I thought was fair enough

I assumed it was original as its was stated as that on the listing so put it up for sale to recoup some of the cost and then sold it to Eve.

Soon as I saw it was questionable I refunded Eve

 

Not commenting on the bezel, but I've reported them many times for fake Rolex and Omega buckles. Why they still have 100% feedback is a mystery.

 

Damn speedmasters. Minefield. Money destroyed the essence. But you acted like a real gentleman. So this thread came out alright.