where i can search its watch its not stolen. In many auction people selling without papers

 

You can Google search the serial numbers, or pay for a service like The Watch Register to run it for you.

Are these modern watches being sold without papers? If so, could you let me know where? I was the victim of a major theft of 18 watches (modern and vintage) last October and so am quite interested in anyplace they may show up.

 

In many places. Ebay, catawiki, chrono 24. Many people sell vintage without papers. I want buy glashutte Original.

 

I see. Tough to find vintage watches with papers anyway, so your best bet would be to Google search "Stolen _____ serial _____ " with the watch model and serial number of what you're looking at.

 

I think most used watches are sold without papers, its only really us nuts who want it. To be fair modern watches with cards are more likely to come with full set of box and papers. Vintage, the older you go the less likely box and papers are, hence they command a premium to collectors. Many reasons ranging from them being lost, to thrown out. As ill as it makes us feel there was a time when people would just leaves those items in the shop where they bought the watch and wear it (do you keep all your shoe boxes? Sneakerheads do)

 

Always best to:
- run a search online for the serial number
- check the stolen watch registries (Watch Register, mystolenwatch, Alpha Hands) just in case
The stolen registries are a fairly low-cost way to double check (though with some registries the price is very high, or if you are running searches on a ton of watches).
In the case of Alpha Hands (https://alphahands.com/faq/stolen-watch-registry-database/) it is a free search...so might as well do it. Registries of course do not have every watch that has ever been stolen, but it is a straightforward way to check.

 

I should probably ask my watchmaker this but when you bring a watch to an independent private watch maker for service do they run serial numbers? When I had my Rolex I had bought in the diamond district of NYC with no papers. I don’t have many high value watches but I’ve bought so many vintage pieces either online or face to face I really have no idea of the history of them. They have all been serviced I just don’t know if the watchmaker I use runs serial numbers as part of his routine.

 

I would be extremely surprised if any independent does. None of the watchmakers I have used in the past check serials, and I don't expect them to (I figure that is my job ). If there is information I do not have already for my watch, such as case or movement numbers, I will ask them to take pictures and I'll run checks myself.

 

Ya I always ask them to write down the info they have. On something like a 1966 seamaster deville I really never thought of running the serial number to check if it was ever stolen. My speedmaster I got though a well known online store, I paid top dollar as I didn’t want to worry about a fake or no warranty etc. maybe my 1970 dynamic was stolen in 1978 and I’m in possession of stolen goods. Perhaps I’m looking at it wrong but I don’t think I’ll bother doing a search on dynamics, constellations etc that are 40 or more years old. If ever I purchase a more valuable watch in a face to face deal I would want to but I generally avoid deals like that anyway. I would hate to purchase something that someone is still thinking about getting depressed remembering the theft. I’ve had a couple watches stolen over the years and put together their value is probably around 1-1.5k so they were not anything special but I still miss them. I never reported them stolen anyway.

 

abrod520, are the serial numbers and Make/Model of your watches registered somewhere in one of those stolen watch databases?
And, if someone comes across one of them, is there a way to notify you that it's been found?

I had a car stolen once and I always wondered how I'll get notified if it every shows up somewhere.

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I would say useful to know the serials regardless, and then report them stolen. Even if you don't recover the watch, you may help someone else who is considering a purchase of one of your stolen watches. Good karma!

 

In fact, I would think that this falls into the category of information that an independent watchmaker doesn't even want to know. A watchmaker is not a member of law enforcement, and he is not buying or selling the watch. Running these checks costs time and money, and if he finds that a watch was stolen in the past, then things would really get sketchy with the customer.

 

I don't know of any registry that is constantly searching for serial numbers where posted (auctions and dealers...sometimes), though it is an interesting question. In the case of Alpha Hands, if someone finds that a watch they are considering purchase is listed in the AH registry, such as @abrod520 's pieces, they would be able to reach out directly (via the original lost post, if available, from which they can contact via DM or otherwise indicated in a post), or contact me (if the individual with the loss has separately provided contact information). I am not certain the process for other registries, however - my guess is that they maintain the individual's contact information and do not provide it to the finder, but rather contact them separately. I am not certain, however.

 

Do you think it would be productive for the Omega Forums (OF) to create a sticky thread to post stolen watches in?
It would probably show up in a google search if the person searched for the serial number of the watch or movement, true?
Just thinking this is another "free thing" of value this forum could offer to its users.
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By the way, this is the car that was stolen that I owned.
It is a green 1970 Jaguar E-type two-seater fixed-head-coupe.
If you see it somewhere, send me a private message.

I got paid the full agreed-value amount for the car from Hagerty Insurance.
But, like a lot of people, I'd rather have the car than the money.

 

And how do you verify that the people contributing these "stolen" serial numbers are legit? This seems ripe for abuse.

 

To be honest, that's an angle I hadn't thought of. Great question.
I don't know if there is any way to protect a legitimate watch owner from that.

Maybe that is ANOTHER good reason to blank out the last digits of a watch's serial number on a public-accessible forum post of it.
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I don’t want to drag this off topic but is is a terrible feeling having items stolen. It takes so much time, money and effort to build a collection especially some of the ones I see around here. I related a story I was doing some house sitting for a friend, really I was just feeding and walking his dogs while he was away. He left two rolexes and another watch which was a gold family heirloom thing sitting out in plain sight. I scooped them up and carefully placed them in a draw under some clothing. I sent him a text of course. I was only there for 1-1.5 hours a day. I was just thinking if there was a break in those watches would be gone and I know my buddy would not be concerned it was me that took them it just made me nervous thinking about what could happen. He is very wealthy probably looks at the watches differently than I do but damn don’t make it easy for thief’s. It all worked out of course but I read some horror stories here about people having amazing collections stolen. Damn that gotta be horrible

 

A number of forums do have this type of sticky for stolen pieces. I think these are certainly useful (if I had a piece stolen I would certainly post everywhere...mostly in an effort to get picked up by search engines). I decided to make it that much simpler for everyone to search by aggregating all stolen pieces I could find (from different sources, regardless of whether they could be indexed by search engines) into a single location.

 

This is actually one of the reasons people often give for obscuring the serial number when they are selling a watch. They are worried about someone reporting the watch stolen, which could cause problems for them. Frankly, I don't know first-hand of any cases where this has actually happened, but that could be because these data-bases really aren't widely used. If one were to create a large, effective, and free-to-use database of stolen serial numbers, I think it would be really important to vet the entries.