Evening, all. I made a nice pickup on the Bay last week. It's a front loader of course so I'll have to have my watchmaker open it up to verify the movement but in my experience these usually have movements in decent condition. Pretty sure it's a 166.0020. Dial is almost perfect and the case is only lightly polished. Any shadows are from scratches on the crystal. I do have a question about the stamps on the bracelet. I'm assuming the "VI" is for Vicenza, Italy, but I may be wrong. The other stamps that are partially worn I can't decipher; perhaps someone could help. I tested it and it tests as at least 14k solid gold but I can't find a karat mark or a 585 or 750 anywhere. As always, thanks for the assistance.
Right off hand I am unable to think of any country that doesn't have some kind of system for hallmarking, trademarking, standard marking, and karat marking items made of karat gold alloy. These marks are usually placed on the clasp, somewhere. Even in countries where rampant misuse of quality stamps abounds, there is some kind of system for marking items (fraudulently) in order to lasso the suckers. You might have to take another look to see if maybe you missed a mark, somewhere. It must be said that some systems use characters that are not in Arabic, but in some other alphabet. Hopefully the VI might mean something to somebody.
Not an Italian hallmark, I think it's an Egyptian 18K marking. If you look at the "VI" it's more like Hebrew or Arabic script. Have a look at this. http://www.ebay.com/gds/Egyptian-Hallmarks-/10000000178591804/g.htmlPurchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network
Ahhh, very good information, I appreciate it immensely. I would never have suspected Egypt. I wish I could distinguish the mark that's next to the VI. Thanks again!