Plundered Omega Polaris: Gold Scrapping of Vintage Watches

Mattsky · Mar 23, 2026

This kind of thing disappoints and boils my piss in equal measure.
It's not the first Polaris to succumb to some slack-jaw's hack-job, and it won't be the last.

Endshake · Mar 23, 2026

Yeah
I found a LOT of polaris Movements and dials in the internet recently and was wondering why…

Mattsky · Mar 24, 2026

Fool's gold 💰

Dan S · Mar 24, 2026

Tons of orphaned movements around that survived 50-80 years as watches, until now. It's so sad.

w154 · Mar 24, 2026

I think I once tried to guesstimate how much gold was in a Polaris inlay, and from memory it was an absolutely tiny amount. But I suppose people who’ve stripped them know exactly, and with gold prices flying it’s maybe viable to buy them purely with the intention if scrapping. It’s sad, yes, but not as sad as seeing the thousands of loose movements that have clearly come from fully gold cased watches.

Porteroso · Mar 24, 2026

The supply of pretty cool watches is just greater than the interest. You'd hope the value of any watch would stay above the raw metal it contains, but sadly not.

These just don't appeal to the modern market so much. I'd never do this myself, though say I had a solid gold Grand Deluxe with bracelet worth 25k or whatever. At some point it gets tempting.

Plundered Omega Polaris: Gold Scrapping of Vintage Watches

Mattsky

Endshake

Mattsky

Dan S

w154

Porteroso

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