Early Polerouter Sub Discussion

MOD NOTE: I've moved posts relevant to this discussion out of the "UG Watches on Ebay thread" to their own discussion.

What is under discussion is the differences between the two types of 1st Generation Poletrouter Sub, pictured below

The watch on the left is referred to as the 2nd execution, and the one of the right is a 1st execution.

The commentary concerns an Ebay listing of a 2nd execution, like the watch at the left of the above pic
http://www.ebay.com/itm/281058259014

END MOD NOTE


The case looks OK even if I have seen "fatter" lugs - second generation.
Crowns look OK.
Difficult to see the movement cal but I think it is a 69 because of the rotor configuration. Movement might be newer than the rest but I am not sure.

Dial looks OK but pics are not great...I would say patina looks very much like the one Paul has on Heuerworld. It shares another thing with Pauls - the "T": s in automatic is a little misplaced, upwards, related to the other letters. And of course the second generation "fun fact" that you explored - the Genè ve. Compared to the first generation dial, with the smaller lumedots within the bigger white indexes, the second generation dials have a sloppier font and from what I have seen no serifs. See below. I have seen some variation in "sloppiness" and this one is among the worst (from what I can see in the pics).

Bezel has really fat numbers in 40 - they seem to have no space between them, but it could just be a production variation. When I go thru the pictures I have saved, there are a lot of bezels with the same problem - sometimes between 2 and 0, sometimes 3 and 0, etc. Probably just bad quality control.

Hands look OK - right length. Maybe lighter patina than dial but difficult to see/say for sure..

In my collected pics there is a variation in how the movement sits in the case and how, and where it is fastened and/but this one falls within the variation.

What have I missed, LouS?
regards
JE
First gen with serifs:
pic borrowed - look at small serifs and a more stringent font (compared with below)



My own pic



Secon gen - the one in the auction we are discussing, smudged letters and compared with the above - also different font. The lume patina is within normal for its age - bleeding and moving around.
Edit - I mean the smudging of the "Polerouter" - not the out of focus smudge. Maybe a I should reserv myself - one have to take into consideration the possibility of a bad crystal also.

Aha - I see you point and I understand your "It makes me a little unsettled".
Not ready to make a strikt statement in either direction yet but my spontanious reaction was/is - when these "aussie-watches" came to the market, was there such a strong market for the UGPS: s that it would be worth it to make fakes? Stranger things has happened and I do not rule it out. I hope we can find some really old pictures of the second execution and settle it on the positive side. Let us hope that we soon, once and for all, can write it off as just really bad quality control.
Regards
JE

The "T": s in automatic looks to be in line with the rest of the letters.

A huge amount of the second execution Polerouter Subs are fake. They were made in Australia by a guy who also made Heuer Bunds and Jaeger-LeCoultre Polarises. He also made fake Breguet and Patek wristwatches from pocketwatch movements. This seller in Ohio has been selling them. Previously, there was a seller listed on eBay in Pennsylvania, perhaps the same person, who was also selling them. He buys authentic movements to put in them (in the case of the Heuer Bund, I don't think he uses correct movements as he doesn't show pictures of them).

Here is one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/UNIVERSAL-G...EYwShhM%3D&orig_cvip=true&hash=item2ec58b5a93

Here is a Polaris he is trying to sell:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Jae...887693949?pt=Wristwatches&hash=item2ec5d6f27d

Take a look at his other items and completed items to see more fakes.

Note a few things. First, the case is not shiny. All the cases this guy makes have a short of rust to them. They were very crudely made. Second, you can see that the hashed crowns are crude and not right. They should be more rounded.

Take a look at this piece I wrote about the Polaris:

http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/2011/9...-comparing-a-fake-and-currently-for-sale.html

I have seen a lot of these fake Polerouter Subs sell and am extremely concerned. I have even see people that bought them try to turnaround and sell them. They have been bringing strong money, which is awful.

The first and most important key to know that it is fake is the finish on the case. See all the little black marks and black spots? It is from poor quality steel. He could probably polish away the black marks, but it would of course affect the look of the case.

All the watches made by this faker have this issue, whether it is on the fake Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris watches or the fake or the The next key are the crowns. Not that an authentic watch can't have fake replacement crowns, but Piquerez crowns are generally much more rounded. You see this on the original Polerouter Subs. Take a look at this Polerouter Sub and its crowns. The upper crown looks legit to me, but the lower crown is much more crude.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/22/stupidezzi2311.jpg/sr=1

The fake cases are all the later version with the bevel. Piquerez introduced the bevel super compressor case in about 1962 on the Vulcain Cricket Nautical. The 1961 Cricket Nauticals have wider lugs without a bevel that are shared by the first generation Polerouter Subs and the Longines super compressor divers. The Polaris models, both 1965 and 1967/1968 all have the beveled cases.

The Tiffany and Co. Polerouter above has the rounded lugs, but they have clearly been pretty heavily polished. It does look like a legit case though, and probably was been a special order piece for Tiffany.

If you look at the fakes, the bevels just are not right. Take a look at the crowns, case finish, and bevels of these two Polerouter Subs sold by Antiquorum:

http://catalog.antiquorum.com/catalog.html?action=load&lotid=352&auctionid=207

http://catalog.antiquorum.com/catalog.html?action=load&lotid=410&auctionid=212

The case is a much brighter steel, like on a Polaris, not matte and scratched. The crowns are rounded and the little notches on the side of the crown are much closer together. The bevels are also wider. These two may have been lightly polished, but probably not too much.

I question almost any 2nd execution Polerouter Sub I see. The case metals don't look right (too gray, no reflective finish, too many scratches in a uniform direction that makes it look like it was polished), and they often have replacement crowns that look non-original and like modern re-makes. Also, sometimes the movements are in horrendous condition, which suggests they were a "drawer movement" that was bouncing around in a drawer and then re-cased.

There were some 2nd execution Polerouter Subs with U.S. Navy markings on the caseback that I also question. It may have been a modern engraving.

These are just my thoughts and might not all be right, but I know for certain that the two Polerouter Subs you show are fakes, just because of the finish and that I know where they have been coming from (someone in Australia making fake Heuer Bundeswehrs and Jaeger-LeCoultre Polarises).

This one is probably real:

http://www.watchestobuy.com/UniversalPolerouterSub.htm

http://www.watchestobuy.com/images/UniversalGenevePolerouterSubb.JPG

If you look at the middle pictures, it shows that the caseback had those U.S. Navy engravings, but then in the bottom picture it was polished out or switched. Or perhaps he switched the caseback, I just can't tell. This caseback looks good to me with the Huguenin Freres markings, perlage, and detailed UG logo, though. The movement looks horrendous, though, however the case has notches in the case by the crowns (look at the front view), which I have never seen a fake have, so I would tend to think it is legit.

Also, another key to tell if one is correct is the caseback engravings. Legit ones should probably have perlage and finely engraved details. Just look at this one on the fake, which has a misaligned Swiss and no perlage:

This caseback on the other fake is similar, but does not include the Brevet. You can see the lack of perlage, poor steel quality, and misalignment here, though, too.

This U.S. Navy one looks like it has a more legit case steel, but the engraving on the back is fake. I have seen some of these show up over the last few years. More are being purchased and having the engravings polished off, like the one sold by WatchesToBuy.com

http://www.mwrforum.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14258

So just to reiterate, I think the legit Polerouter Subs should probably have inside casebacks with the HF for Huguenin Freres engraved on them. Probably perlage, too.

Like on this one:

http://www.watchestobuy.com/images/UniversalGenevePolerouterSubb.JPG

There have been a number of posts about the fake Heuer Bundeswehrs on OnTheDash. Here are some:

http://www.chronocentric.com/forums/heuer/index.cgi?md=read;id=31921

http://chronocentric.com/forums/heuer/index.cgi?md=read;id=44874

http://chronocentric.com/forums/heuer/index.cgi?md=read;id=41247

Pics are no longer up, but here is one that was for sale:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Heuer-Milit...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

The main Jaeger-LeCoultre forum is on PuristS, but they have a rule against linking to outside sites and eBay auctions, so there is never any discussion of authenticity issues. There was a discussion here:

http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...-JLC-Polaris-follow-up&highlight=fake+polaris

There was a thread on TZ-UK that I link to in my HODINKEE post where someone shows off a new Polaris, but then people began to comment that it was fake and point out the differences. That thread seems to have been taken down for some reason.

It is just hard to say about what this Australian is doing. Did he get a stock of original dials (with the space in GENE VE) and cases from somewhere then start making them? Were the dials originally errors meant to be disposed of, but he somehow got them? Is almost every 2nd execution Polerouter Sub a fake, even those with period and original stainless steel cases? How long has he been doing this? The thing is that the internal bezels of the Polerouter Subs he is making look so good and original.

Yes, I remember not too long ago that they decided to forbid any mention of the outside world via links.

I agree with you LouS. It seems like the person pumping these out may have had the internal bezels and the dials (or had the dials made-up), but just needed to make the cases and crowns as well as obtain movements.