Polarouter on Auction

Something about this dial does not look quite right. The fonts look correct, the serial number and case back style are appropriately early, it has the concentric lines in the chapter ring of some gold-capped Polas, but what would cause the cross hair at right to be smudged, other than a redial? I am not sure about the way the lower cross hair passes through the M either. Also, it does not say Swiss at the bottom, though sometimes this gets covered by the chapter ring if the dial is not positioned correctly, and clearly this chapter ring is rotated out of position. Thoughts?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Universal-Geneve-Polarouter-rarer-than-Polerouter-vintage-watch/233310782594?_trkparms=aid=111001&algo=REC.SEED&ao=1&asc=20160908105057&meid=d249724e28c64d4ea70ce5115d32f652&pid=100675&rk=1&rkt=15&sd=233310782594&itm=233310782594&pg=2481888&_trksid=p2481888.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci:5b4c4d49-bfba-11e9-9132-74dbd180f9cd|parentrq:97c393ec16c0a9e3aa909bb4fff6487a|iid:1

This one popped up on the Polerouter gallery thread not long ago.

I think it is most likely a redial. The case, ring, hands etc all appear to be original.

To be fair, the seller is not asking a great deal for the watch.

Hello @Adam2941

I'm the seller of the Polarouter and, for what it's worth, don't believe it to be a redial. Comparing the printing between mine and a known 'original' example, the size of the lettering and fonts are the same (including the curiously large gap between G and E of Geneve) which I wouldn't expect if it had been redialed. The cross hair crosses the M of Automatic in the same place and the upper cross hair appears shifted slightly to the right of the point of the 'U' emblem on both watches. What I think has happened with my example is that it has been quite unsympathetically cleaned which has left the dial looking silvery, smudged the cross hair at 3 o'clock and erased the swiss. Traces of the colour the dial had from new are visible at the periphery between 2 and 3 o'clock and near the Polarouter text.
Badly cleaned seems more likely than redialed to me though I'm going to be biased!

View attachment 821211

That seems very plausible based on your analysis.

The applied logos on these seem to be wonky more often than not. I'd be worried if it was straight 😀

The text on the other watch appears more 'serifed' than on your watch but the text on these early Polarouters is not always consistent and the extent of the serifs does vary.

Out of interest, have you seen the dial without the ring? Do you know that the Swiss is missing?

The serifs are there, crap photos I'm afraid!. I've seen the movement out of the case and the Swiss is gone sadly

By "the most valuable part of the dial" I assume you mean the Polarouter text, the area which happens to still retain it's gold colour and, it seems fair to assume, may have been less aggressively cleaned than the rest of the dial. Could be coincidence or could just be whoever has worked on the watch in the past stopped scrubbing when the last R started to disappear?
I'll post a better photo in a couple of days when I've got the watch in hand

Yes, I think your explanation is reasonable, cleaned instead of redialed; and in light of all that, your price seems fair, too. Better, sharper, more macro photos would have helped a lot. Ideally some close up photos of the dial removed from the case would have been preferable, though I realize that is asking a lot. There is probably some remnant of the Swiss down there, even a smudge. Anyway, it seems to be an original Pola, and there are not many of those around!

Personally, I think it's very fairly priced.

The rings with the concentric circular pattern are unique to the gold capped Polas and really very beautiful.

I think this is another example where it helps to appraise the whole watch, rather than just the dial.
Why would anyone bother to reprint watch text, and not repaint the rest of the dial that is in such condition? And if you messed it up that badly - why not just remove it and start again?
It doesn't make sense to me, especially with that quality of text printing on a relatively low value watch.

The text itself looks original to my eye - my guess is they partially cleaned the dial, and either messed up around the crosshair, or tried to remove most of the horizontal part of the crosshair and then reprint over the top of it - that's possibly how the smudging happened, and yet the text stayed in tact. Who knows for sure though...

Well, I just thought it might have been a redial that was later damaged. Anyway, I am now convinced that it is an original dial that has been badly cleaned.