Dont only buy the seller, do your homework too

I wasnt trying to criticise or call anyone out. I was merely trying to share my experience about not doing enough research prior. Apologies if it seemed like I was bashing the seller.

I Know, I was was just as I've said, speaking 'In general' 😉
Some people just have to say something to look like experts...

F for YOU to be impressed by another’s UG collection means your Italian connection could only be Signor Sala himself, surely?😎

Are you allowed to tell us about the finest UG you saw there? Enquiring minds want to know...

...I, too, am intrigued! That said, we know @10H10 is a gentleman: surely we can’t expect him to kiss-and-tell.

Slight bit of devil's advocate here, but there aren't a lot of "this is what to look for" threads, so if someone (read: me) points out something - let's say 'unusual' - about a watch, the community may gently (I hope) offer education. I don't see that as me bashing a watch and there aren't many other ways for people (again: me) to learn what is and isn't correct.

I still have no idea how that dial is distinguished as service vs original at a glance, but some of you appear to be able to do it so it must be a teachable skill.

You have no idea beacuse there are NOT service dials in UG.
There are authentic dials, and fake dials. That's all 😀

I'm curious about your source for that assertion. There has been talk of UG refurbishing dials during the service process (admittedly not the same as a service redial where the dial is swapped out) and it came to my attention when I introduced this watch (which I now keep for spare parts as there was never much mileage in trying to bring it back in its current state).

https://omegaforums.net/threads/compur-with-calibre-283-thoughts.34265/

My source is just the fact that during 40s UG refs were made to distinguish cases and not dials. Dials are not always the same for the same ref. This is a very important point to understand if somebody wants to start collecting UG.
Dials are always different and they can be:
1) true Ug dials
2) fake or reprinted UG dials

There are NOT forniture dials simply because don't exist a specific pattern between dials and refs. For instance, a steel Unicompax can have a white or black or grey dial, roman or arabic indexes, radium, not radium, no scales or multiscale, always with the same reference numbers.

Your honor, if it may please the court, I'd like to revise my statement: I still have no idea how that (or any) dial is distinguished as fake vs real at a glance because the experts only leave one word answers.

Yes you're right, I forgot about this Tri( )Compax dial.
I red that topic a year ago more or less, and I completely forgot it because I don't really like TriCompaxes! 😁

But question is not so easy: we are not speaking like in Rolex, or other brands. Dials in UG world are a complex thing, and, basically, not easy to solve.
These Tricompaxes dials are easily recognizable because they are the only known examples (so far) with the emply space between Tri and Compax words, all whit the same features.
I understand your point. But question now is larger: what makes a dial, a furniture dial? In UG i mean.
Tri Compaxes are models very popular and made for like 15 years, a different thing is to think about dials for Compur or Aero-Compax watches. For sure there were more common dial design that others, but imho a furniture dial is something made in a second moment to fix a previous watch.
At the moment I don't know other dials with these features, for other types of watch.
There are some simple Uni-Compax dials sometimes available, but they looks authentic, with no differences, to some said as legit. So maybe during the 40s or 50s, if (for instance) a Compur dial was damaged, they gave the owner another dial, or maybe a Uni-Compax dial. In some cases the references was the same, for Uni-Compax and Compur watch.
It's a very complex situation, I agree with you.
But to summarize, I tend to think simpler, original OR fake. Because we don't have certain instruments, at the moment, to think differently. With the exception of that Tri( )Compax dial.
That is, moreover, very nice! But this is another thing.

In conclusion, sorry to summarize too much! 😀

Ahah yes! I tend to prefer less busy dials.
On the other hand, I like triple calendar UGs.

I'm struggling to understand how you can state the whole issue is very complex and then move to a statement using the words "think simpler". To be honest I can't follow a huge amount of you're reasoning but I'll put that down to machine translation.

One thing I have learnt from this forum is that there's nothing simple about vintage UG.

Because imho these two things are complementary.
It's very "simple" to recognize a true UG dial, once you've studied them a lot. That is complex 😁

There are some recurrent features, spotting redials is not so complex, mostly because UG dials are so many that is not easy, for forgers, to understand what to copy.
It's probably easier for 60's examples, because more standard and more valuable.

This is just my opinion, maybe it's easy for me and complex for others, maybe I am just terribly lucky.

The best instrument you can have is Sala's book. In these archives you have tons of pics of UG dials, with tons of graphics. My advice is to study very well that book. That is not infallible, but it's a very good tool.

That's a bit clearer. Thanks.

I still don't think it's that simple though 😀.