I recently acquired this.

The text looks right in terms of font and quality of printing and it is perfectly aligned with the printed SAS logo, which seems to be of a consistent colour and quality of printing. It has narrow chapter ring markers and a serial number (1684xxx) that is sufficiently early and I think dates it to a time when the Polarouter was changing to the Polerouter. Case reference is 20217-4.

My slight concerns are that I've not seen one with a black dial and the dial is missing the "Polerouter" text.

My instinct is that it is genuine. What do people think? This is the only photo I have currently. I can provide more photos when the watch arrives.

 

Sorry I meant to say that the dial is missing the "Polarouter" text but I think it auto-corrected.

 

One concern is lumed hands but no lume on dial- is that natural for some of these polarouters?

 

Thanks, good point. It is certainly usual for a 20217-4 to have lumed hands but those do usually have lume dots on the dial.

But with this potentially being an SAS dial, rather than just a Polarouter or Polerouter, is it possible to say what is the norm?

 

The printing is in a fair bit lower quality than those I've seen on OF, for sure... Look at how the right part of the heraldic emblem is blurry, for instance. On the one in this thread, it is more precise (and doesn't lack "Polarouter", has "Swiss" at 6 and the lower text is in a different order...):
https://omegaforums.net/threads/1954-sas-universal-polarouter.3806/

 

Thanks for your thoughts. Given how few others we've seen, I spent some time looking at the text on the example you flagged and had noted the different text order. I also agree that the printing of the emblem does not appear to be as crisp based on this photo - some of this may be due to what appears to be a scratched crystal. We also don't have another example of the emblem printed in gold on a black dial to compare to.

The only other Polarouter/Polerouter dials I've seen with the Universal Geneve text at the bottom of the dial are SAS dials, which means that if this is not a genuine SAS dial, that the entire dial is a fabrication. I'm just struggling to believe that given that the text looks right, the early serial number, the chapter ring and the lack of any other alarm bells (it has clearly not been prepared for sale as the case is unpolished and the crystal scratched).

 

I don't know why I didn't insist on a photo without the hands in the way of the text though!

 

Interesting that the gold Polarouter De Luxe below with engraved SAS emblem has the text in the same order as the one I've acquired i.e. "Universal Geneve" before "Automatic".

 

Dial colour not seen previously (Right?).
Text of a type not seen previously.
Missing "Swiss" and "Polarouter".
Lumed hands on dial without any lume dots.
Print quality low.

I wouldn't have gone for it, for sure. Hope it turns out to be right!

 

I would be very surprised if this one turned out to be a genuine SAS Polarouter

 

Thanks, further photos to follow in a few days.

If this is not right, then we are effectively saying that someone took an early 20217-4 and fabricated an entirely new dial with SAS emblem and text. Has anyone ever come across a falsified SAS Polarouter before?

 

Most interesting. The hands are definitely wrong because they are meant to be non-lume hands. Here are a few SAS Polarouter in steel with printed logo,



While they're all white dial, all three watches also has 20217-6 case ref, with 164xxxx serial. Please post some close-up photos of the dial when it arrives!

 

The SAS emblem of the OP watch looks good to me, here compared to a known good example from above. The kerning is the same. Notice that the second "S" on both examples is not quite as curved as the first "S"

 

Calling @Severin

 

Very interesting! The SAS script is much thicker and the logo appears to be an imprint or a mirror image of the other. As Dre said more pictures, please.

 

Plot twist: It turns out it is an actual SAS Polarouter that has been redialed black

 

I'm taking nothing for granted but here is my thinking regarding the hands.

Let's assume that someone decided at the time to create a black dialled SAS Polarouter rather than the white dialled versions we've seen previously.

There were two possibilities - the 20217-1 or the 20217-4 (since the other versions had white dials).

Once the decision is taken to use a 20217-4 then the fact that it has lumed hands does not surprise me because lumed hands are right for that case reference, even though the dial has no lume. I might be more worried if a 20217-4 had non-lumed hands.

The chapter ring is also correct for this case reference with its narrow hour markers. Had they opted to use the 20217-1 then I think we would have seen non-lumed hands and the chapter ring with wide hour markers.

The only thing that is out of the ordinary for this watch is the dial. There are two possible reasons for that - it was made for SAS or it's a fabrication.

Thanks to @Severin for his fabulous work here https://thespringbar.com/blogs/guides/universal-geneve-polarouter

 

Apologies for the delays. I have tried to move things as quickly as possible but don't expect to receive the watch until Wednesday at the earliest.

Whilst waiting, I have begun to wonder what evidence will be required to authenticate the watch.

For me, the text in the lower half of the dial is critical. If that text is correct, then I cannot think of another explanation for the "Universal Geneve" text to be in the lower half of the dial, other than the watch being a genuine SAS example.

Obviously I will also inspect the emblem and SAS text closely. Based on the only photo I have currently, the printing does not seem to be as crisp as the other known white dialled versions but we do not have another black dialled version with gold printing to compare it to.

The emblem printing does however seem to be an exact copy of the emblem on the known examples, other than it is in gold ink instead of black. I cannot see a single detail of an authentic black printed emblem that is not replicated on the gold printed version. The emblem is also aligned horizontally relative to the SAS text in exactly the same way as the known examples (i.e. the end points of the letters line up with exactly the same part of the emblem below). The emblem is also central and exactly parallel with the lines of text, which are parallel with each other. In my opinion, if this is a redial or a fabrication of some sort then it is a very sophisticated one.

 

Well, it is different from the gold Polerouter pictured above.

How will you judge it? Fonts and such? Position on the dial?

Btw, I was wondering (Polerouter gurus are welcome with input!) - are the normal Polerouter dials with gold lettering done with golden ink or is from removing black paint from the bare brass/golden dial base? My example is the common type with silver letters.

 

I agree that judging whether the text is correct is easier said than done. There is very little consistency in the text in early Polarouters/Polerouters as shown by the table in this incredible post by @Severin

https://omegaforums.net/threads/pol...-a-brief-survey-with-some-observations.35888/

Gold text on a black dial will be printed.

By the way, can I see an inkling of gold "Swiss" text just above the chapter ring to the right of the central hour marker? Or, having looked at this dial for so long, am I beginning to see things?