I read in some other thread a post by
@Archer where he said non OEM parts for at least Omegas aren't a concern. I think he meant that all Omega parts are OEM whether serviced by Omega/omega authorized/ somebody having Omega parts etc or not. Of course there could be tiny bit risk but what I think he meant is the risk is almost non existent.
Just to clarify, what I said was that for movement parts, there aren't many fake/aftermarket parts out there. For the cases though, there certainly are, so it's case parts that tend to be the issue.
For example a Speedmaster case came to me with fake pushers on it last year...
In each photo the genuine part is on the left, and you can see the differences in both the quality of the part, and differences in dimensions and shapes:
The genuine parts are machined to a much higher level, and the fake tube had an unthreaded portion:
The unthreaded portion caused the pusher tube to not fully screw into the case - here is the fake part on the case:
And the genuine:
The person who sold the case didn't know they were fake, and had bought them as "genuine" Omega parts off eBay I believe (he stepped up and paid for genuine pushers for my customer). There are well known parts distriobutors who have been making replacement crystals specifically for Omegas, and I've read reports that the quality isn't terribly good.
In general, genuine movement parts are usually easier to get on the secondary market than case parts are, because one movement can be used in many different models that require many different case parts - crowns, crystals, piushers, hands, seals, etc.
So two advantages of working with a watchmaker with a parts account is that they will have access to the genuine parts, and likely those parts will be cheaper than sourcing them on the open market. That doesn't mean someone without a parts account can't do the job, but they may pay more for the parts and have to search to find them (and might not be able to find them in the end).
Cheers, Al
