This may be a naive question, but I've bought/sold expensive watches for years without concern for who knows what the number is... What are the consequences? Also blurring out the production number of a limited edition. Who cares?

 

Ask, and ye shall find.

https://omegaforums.net/threads/why...-the-serial-numbers-on-vintage-watches.28817/

 

Friend of mine bought a ladie's Patek at a garage sale about 20 years ago, for $85.00. He sent the S# off to Patek to request a certificate for it. Six weeks later, the RCMP knocked on his door. The watch had been reported stolen in the early 1960s! The gendarmes were talking about making an arrest, until my friend told them he was only 8 years old when the watch was stolen! He surrendered the watch.

In the late 1980s, I was working for a Rolex dealer. We had a smash and grab, and lost six Rolex watches, including an 18-karat Day Date and matching Lady Date! That's one reason folks tend to hide serial numbers!

 

Thanks for pointing me to that thread -
Exposed serial numbers don't bother me so I stick to that camp of posters. My insurance company has all my numbers listed anyway.

 

Well, I don't know about the law in your countries, but in Switzerland we know the legal term "Ersitzung", called usucaption in English.
If you own a mobile object in bona fide for more than five years and nobody has made any claims (to your direction), you will automatically become the owner of the object. Even if it once was stolen and sold to you.

A friend of mine bought a second hand Mercedes from a well known seller a long time ago. After years it came out that the car originally was stolen. But my friend could keep the car nevertheless, as he could prove that while buying the Mercedes, he had no reason to think that something wouldn't smell right. And as for several years nobody told him about the car's dark secret, he became the legal owner of the once stolen car. That was the case, even after its dark secret came out...

This is why I assume that your friend would have been able to keep the watch if he had lived in Switzerland...


Here's a quotation of what Swiss civil law says about it:

Art. 728 B. Forms of acquisition / VII. Adverse possession
VII. Adverse possession

1 If a person has possessed a chattel belonging to another person uninterruptedly and without challenge for five years believing in good faith that he or she owns it, he or she becomes its owner by adverse possession.

Link to the website: https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19070042/index.html#

 

This makes no sense. Patek Phillips sent the police to someone's door for a 1960s theft? Even reported stolen I doubt any one in a police department would have cold case files like that on demand from 50+ years ago.

I could see if it was perhaps stolen in a crime where a member of the Royal family was murdered and that Patek was crucial in an evidence situation but that is a long stretch. Furthermore why would they think the criminal would wait 50+ years to certify a watch.

As for Serial Numbers in modern day I feel people treat them like vin numbers to protect buyers and prevent counterfeiters from copying serials. Still a long stretch but everyone is paranoid these days!