Omega could have kept this finding secret but I give them tons of respect for going public with this.

This is less about Omega and more about the seedy and unethical practices auction houses operate under. If anything Omega should be commended for going public.

Imagine you have a dream job at Omega museum, having direct access to the greatest watches of all time. With a good pay for sure. Then the greed kicks in...

It sounds to me that this is a classic Fidelity case. Omega was defrauded by one of its key executives. Omega was a victim. And if Omega made the public announcement, Kudos to them. It shows just how decent and honest the Company Directives really are. They voluntarily submitted themselves to public shame in order for the TRUTH to prevail.

Actually, the biggest Omega scandal in history is the fact that the original Moonwatch was lost.

Bottom line is buyer beware, Phillips does not care, they simply are middlemen. They have no culpability, nor take any responsibility. The whole auction process was corrupt in this case.

can’t wait for the netflix docu about this

I legitimately thought this was going to be a review of the Saturn Moonswatch. Can’t believe that dial fooled anyone.

Great video as always, but I have a different perspective on this one 1/Watch manufacturers brand image benefits from high resale prices. Watch brands investing in buying a few of their own rare vintage pieces at inflated prices can be good advertising. So this happens…with Rolex, Omega…. 2/However, I think they (the watch manufacturer) should offer a “verified authentic” check and certificate for vintage watches. It goes beyond box + papers to affirming the core parts (movement / dial / case) to the best of their knowledge belong together for the particular model. Not perfect but an accepted standard of authenticity from the brand. Maybe an extension of Rolex Authorised PreOwned… 3/I don’t see how an auction house themselves can realistically own this. It needs to be the brand. And the consumer is then protected and has the option of paying more for this added assurance of this certificate from the brand. Just like if you buy a car at auction with the condition on it being checked out. So the auction house raises their standard by recommending / marketing they only place for auction “certified authentic”, placing a higher bar on the seller to take this step with the brand, so the end consumer wins. 4/BUT The auction house is responsible that their own marketing material (pictures, description) match what is being sold. So, in your Panerai example, I agree that is the auction houses fault as the image doesn’t match what it is being auctioned. But in the omega example you’re getting what you’re shown…albeit a watch that had some replacement parts and time in the oven

I have heard that a number of watch companies have put their own watches into auctions and then have bid for and bought them back at inflated prices. They pay themselves and the auction house takes a cut. The purpose is to drum up collectors’ interest by giving the impression that the watches have considerably appreciated in value,so it’s time to buy them up before they go up again.

As an experienced art buyer… I know fakes pass through the most discerning auction houses with everyone looking the other way. Watches are not any different

Keep it up guys! Appreciate the content!

thanks for beeing brutally honest and for not ignoring this topic about phillps and bacs. greetz from Italy

20:20 "Aurel is truly one of the most charismatic salespeople I've ever seen, the guy just so well groomed..." 😂 Well, con artists and frauds usually are.

This reminds me of the Rudy Kurniawan story in the fine wine space... would make an awesome movie or documentary...

The last few minutes of Christian there was a thing of beauty. The blue collar beginnings, the Italian inferiority complex, succeeding in an old-money context and throwing it back in their fucking face. More of this! Absolute brilliance 🎉

Great conversation guys, talking to us without talking down to us. I learned a lot!

Omega also faked the moon landing.. just to sell more watches! 😂😂

Who drove up the price? Omega bought it, but somebody had to be pushing up the price all the way up to over 3 mil then walk away, right.

The movies Incognito and The Red Violin explore this subject. Most "experts" do not have the necessary research material or time to judge authenticity to any real degree. It reminds me of the diamond trade. I asked a friend who is a gemologist what percentage of diamonds are blood diamonds and he said, "You have to assume that they all are." You have to assume that almost all extremely rare watches are some percentage less than "real".

It just shows there could be a place in the market for an auction disruptor to verify watches or even a small auction house that can be trusted to represent the seller and the buyer.

Great video guys. Christian, you were on fire!

Sorry to get off topic, but I'm always fascinated by the perfect patina, a black turned to a burnished brown, as you mentioned. I'm a coin collector and I see exactly the same things in some coins as I see in watches. Far from all, but once in a while, a certain coin (for reasons I can't necessarily fathom) takes on the most beautiful hue. And, they're not even valuable coins. I have a copper-clad Eisenhower dollar from 1971 that has turned to the most perfect blue, a Jefferson nickel that is resplendently orange, and many others. I see many similarities in these two pursuits.

Meanwhile back in the real world...no one even shrugged.

This 100k views video hasn’t received a like from at least 10% of its viewers. I feel Theo and Harris deserves a more qualified audience.

What other watch brand would publicly admitt something like this? No one. Cudos to Omega for this brave move. I lowe them even more now👍

Absolute best hot takes on the internet here. Thank you for calling out dishonest BS. F that whole ecosystem. I have zero tolerance for people who profiteer on their supposed elitism and expertise, when their entire reputation is just a house of cards. When they are dealing with that much money, they should be held to high standards, and here it seems they weren’t even delivering on the table stakes.

I'll wait the movie version of this mess. I absolute want Terry Crews in the cast.

Amazing content. Thank you.

watching this has made me think tha omega should do brown dials for the seamaster and planet ocean range

Thank you gentlemen. Liked & subscribed.

It always throws me off when a watch is called “fake” but is all genuine parts, I can not wrap my head around that idea for some reason. Hilarious that so many Omega “experts” looked at this watch and high-fived each other right to the auction and one little basset hound sees it on an instagram post and says “you’ve got to be kidding me” 😂

Great video as always

First of all, thank you for a great channel and for being entertaining, knowledgeable and with great taste. I have a topic for a video that I wish you might consider in the future: Is an all gold watch really a good starter watch? I’m about to buy my first proper timepiece and I’m so tempted to go for a vintage Cartier Santos 24 mm in solid gold. I have finally found one in great condition. But: Is all gold really smart if this is your only watch and you want it to be an everyday workhorse? Do you think I will feel intimidated to wear it every day? Would it be better to go for a two toned watch instead? Or should I follow my heart which is beating for this gold one? Would love your opinion on this! Anyway, thank you so much for great content!

The biggest unanswered question in my mind is this: how on earth did the museum director manage to convince the board of Omega that this particular watch was worth pursuing so relentlessly at auction? There’s nothing remotely special about it; it’s an aesthetically pleasing example of a very rare model, sure, but it has no significant history or provenance attached to it. At best, this suggests the leadership of the company blindly (foolishly) trusted anything the museum requested. At worst? I’m not going there…

@15:27 - those aren't the same dials. You can see the circular guilloche around the subdials are both different widths. Those reference photos are of different dials.

Outstanding!

Great Scott Man!!!

Where can I buy that selvage denim shirt/popover?

Art piece is only made once by one artist that's probably dead and cant remake the same piece even if he's alive. Watches are made by company's machines (in large number), they can remake millions pieces today if they want to. Watch auction is just another tool for brands to boost price.

This is like the Oceans 11 of watch collecting. Definitely should be a film! Crazy stuff! Would love to see someone take a deeper look into that Paul Newman Paul Newman after this. Definitely puts a target on Philips other pieces. What else got through? Right?

"The serial number was photoshopped on" "WHAAAAAAAAAAT?!"

By this stage I’m not at all surprised that there are fakes being sold at auction houses

People with too much money and not enough sense getting screwed. This is interesting but I’m having a really hard time feeling bad for anyone, really

Loved the rant.

great video!

Great stuff guys. That was some fraud! Probably the most interesting story yet (for me as a watch modder). I have dabbled in aging a bronze GMT diver. - Put the dial submerged in lemon acid (only 12-6), to bleach the dial and lume a bit. Then baked the other side in an oven covered with some coffee for 15 mins at 200 degrees •C to darken the lume & dial on that side. - Suspended the bronze case over lemon juice & salt to force patina & get some different tinges. I got some almost orange and blue due to aging (I even got some specks of green on the teeth of the bezel) - I faded the aluminium bezel insert in some bleach to make it look older (only the 1-12 side on the GMT bezel insert). I wanted to age it as if someone had been wearing it for ages, only exposing half the watch to sunlight, just creeping out from under the cuff (which always happens to me, when I go to bed, only half the lume lights up). - The hands are the hardest, because it’s super difficult to match the dial, they go a lot quicker, so only 9 mins covered in coffee at 200 degrees •C. Assemble everything, use an old NATO, or leather strap and you have a “vintage” watch. You can even apply some scratching to the case, by nipping a doorway, or some nicks with scotch bright, but I think I went far enough on that instance.

I am in classic car business. We can switch parts with other identical cars of the period, and we can fettle original parts to make them look better, put in an oven etc. We don't call that fraud though. Fraud would be if we changed the serial number or included parts not made by the original manufacturer at the original time.

I've dipped my toe into the neo vintage market with a gold OP34 14238 from 1998 but don't think I'll ever buy another older piece. It's too much of a mine field.

Guys at Omega…”There's water in the basement, and the pilot light is out.”

The Message is we are overpaying big money for something that can be perfectly made for much less money.

“I just want to have a conversation” sound pretty threatening to me.

I too have the Ekster Parliament wallet… It’s great.

Great video don’t worry about telling the truth and being honourable, it’s what money can’t buy.

Michael what shirt are you wearing. I see it's selvedge denim but wondering what brand. Is it something you're doing on the iron snail channel

Great video.

Am I having false memories, or did they already cover this a few days ago?

So how does T&H do their due diligence to check?

Not just kickbacks, but the auction price of that model and similar era (less scarce) models would increase.

What a shame

The rabbit hole has just begun to be explored

I agree

Yes totally true But for the next customers, it will be not a problem because the watches was confirm by Philips so normally they will never loose value even if they are false, welcome on the new world of speculation Sorry for my bad English, I’m French

It would be interesting to know if there are any updates to this case ? Has Petros Protopapas gone to jail ? Have the other people involved been named ?

These two. When the chemistry is uncomfortably good.

What are the dimensions of Christian's cartier tank normale? Does anyone know?

Surly now, because of all the publicity this watch has generated, doesn't it now become worth that selling price if not more.

The lesson here: Perezcope is the GOAT.

Now that Omega has confirmed that its a fake watch. I'm offering to take this watch off of Omega for $500, just to save them some money

Fantastic video. YES.

How boring would life be if everything went exactly as planned also that denim starter jacket will be a hit among the welder ironworker set

Vintage watch collecting is a minefield I steer clear from.

Freaking love this channel. Love the rant towards the end, yet also true! Omega seems to be the victim in this case. The auction house is more at fault and the individuals behind the fraud.

Can you imagine being the other bidder. Talk about dodging a bullet.

With the rising prices we have seen in the past, nobody including the buyer is interested in exposing a fake as long as you do not hold the potato when the music stops. It would have probably gone quiet as all the other watches exposed if a private individual had bought it. Sellers, auction houses, experts and buyers all benefited from turning a blind eye. Let's see how this will change once the hype is over.

Just found an editing mistake that might be important for viewers not familiar with this case: At 15:03 you're suddenly talking about another watch than the one made for the Peruvian air force. Also the picture should have changed at that point. The two watches are clearly different.

Perfectly said Christian

Best T&H video ever.

Perezscope has earn my respect very early on. If you guys don’t already follow him I highly recommend it. Great video guys

I actual do not like the look of the watch at all - Not that I could afford it if I did like it

Yeah the first time I heard this story it sounded like a Daniel ocean movie

Look into the current value on graded trading cards, the fraud is rampant. Brand new out of the pack cards going for tens of thousands after grading.

Sheeeeet that’s some crazy shizzzz

I really don't think this thing puts Omega in a bad light. They weren't the ones making this Frankenstein watch. Any company can have a bad employee with criminal energy. It's really more embarrassing for the auction company and their "experts".

Like the Denim shirt, can you tell us more about it ? Is it raw Denim?

The message is stop over paying for something you can make fake. No watch is the world from steel is worth 10 thousand or more. This is not the first time this happened or the last time it will. Look at John Mayer Fake Rolex, he got sold like 5 Rolex that were fake and He didn’t know until he send them to repair at Rolex.

So you guys don't care about the currencies at all, ha? Michael says the watch cost 200k euros, Christian repeats immediately after him that the watch cost 200k dollars. Then both of you say that the auction watch sold for 3.15 mil dollars but put up a picture showing it sold for 3.15 chf? WTF? I hope you don't inspect and service your for sale watches with that same diligence...

"This is maybe one of the most insane cases of Fraud and deception and thievery in watch, maybe, history..." Had to go back and double check this wasn't a video about Rolex ADs...

I see a market for a watch AI, similar to face id

ia this a reason I only buy dcent pricedwatches?

isn’t it a bit odd that the Phillips estimate for the early and important watch was just 80k-120k?

14:50 those dials are not the same dials. Come on guys you’re being sloppy…

Michael just learned how to whistle wanted to show everyone

sound like the begining of something , later other tropical dial or rare watches would started to apear on the market, an with this artificial price as precedent you can get mor money. similar to the artificial pricing of rolex, that why i thing omega didnt want to be acused of being part of this

17:46 …or perhaps they’ve done this before 🤔

- How much does this watch worth ? - 200.000 Euro - This is a 200.000 $ Omega Speedmaster ! LOL WTF ?!

You guys stare into each others eyes more in 30mins than my wife and I have in 30 years ....

Oh, that'll teach me to comment before the end of the video

What kind of access do potential buyers get to these watches pre auction? Do they have the opportunity to look at the watch properly? If yes, than that's saying something about Omega: That themselves can't even tell if an Omega is fake. So why should anyone pay money for the real thing if the people who make the watch can't tell the difference?

yes - we the watch buying public care about this fraud, is any second hand Omega true ?