How to Tell a Good Vintage Watch from a Fake Cheap Watch Dufonte VS Bulova

Dufonte Ladies Diamond Date Watch on Left, Lady Bulova Black Faced Diamond Watch on Right

Both look good with minimal wear

Which is the Real Deal? How do you tell which one is worth hundreds and which is garbage?

Hers' a few guidelines I use when looking a Vintage Watches. This advice could also apply to buying a new watch, but you can usually tell a good watch because the fakes are being sold in an alley by a guy with a card table and trench coat, while fine watches are generally sold in a Jewelry or Fine Department Store. Nuff said on that topic... let's get on to our Vintage watch buying scenario.

The best place to look for a vintage watch is at yard or estate sales. I have found treasure on ebay, but only through trusted sellers and even I have been taken by a few unethical watch sellers on the auctions, so I advise staying away from internet sales unless the seller offers to open the watch and send you pictures of the movement. Even then they can "Bait and switch" at the last moment, so Buyer Beware.

Add caption

Add caption

So... on the left above we have the Dufonte "Lucien Piccard" Designer watch and on the right a Bulova Ladies watch. Both look pretty good and show minimal signs of wear. But there is something right off that catches the eye on the stand, the Dufonte Date window is unreadable through the magnification bubble over it. This is your first hint. A badly made crystal shows. If you look even closer at the crystal, (I hope you bring some sort of magnification with you on your treasure hunts), you may find that the crystal has bubbles in it, which is a sure sign of a plastic crystal, (not always a bad thing, maybe the buyer had it replaced at a bargain jewelry store and crystals are cheap to replace, so I wouldn't count a watch out on this evidence alone).

Next you would ask if you could take a look at the watch and remove it from its stand. Feel the heft and weight of the watch, a good watch has a smooth, buttery and weighty feel to it, the Dufonte felt light and it had slightly rough edges around the bezel and strap, the links fold awkwardly feel a bit stiff. The Bulova feels like molten gold and slips through the hand evenly, begging you to caress it.

Look carefully at the face through magnification, the Dufonte has "Japan Movement" on its dial face partially obscured by a bracket securing the face to the bezel. Well designed watches don't have part of the inscription covered up by poor design.

Turning to the Bulova you will see that it has the words, "Movt West Germany" and a model number after that, "92f62". This, in of itself, does not prove you in fact have a genuine watch, but you are getting closer, fake watches can have false information on the dial.

In Japan versus West German Movements there is no contest, the preferred movement being obvious. I must clarify that there are some very fine Japanese movements and no watch should be shunned simply because of oriental origin.

Dufonte Sports a screw off back

Bulova has finely milled pry off back

 Now we're going to turn over the watch and take a look at the back. The Dufonte sports a very impressive screw off back, assuring us of water resistance engraved on the steel back to 3ATM. Hmmm. Usually real watch companies say right out, "Water Resistant to 30M", perhaps a typo? I've never run across this abbreviation before, it seems suspect to me.

The Bulova on the right has a simple, very finely milled stainless back with the usual information cleanly engraved into the surface. It also features a special pry off back that we are just about to get into with the Seller, we are going to ask to see the inside....

Dufonte Sports a Very cheap
plastic movement, battery is even hanging loose..

This is a tricky spot with a lot of Sellers, if this is a yard sale you might get an outright refusal, this is where you come in and expertly take out your finely sharpened pocket knife and expertly remove the back yourself. I don't recommend using a screwdriver, they tend to slip and mar to easily, a good pocket knife used by an experience watch battery changer will do the trick nicely.

If the Seller seems reticent, you should pull out your "Triplet" magnification and look over the watch very carefully in front of them, this usually allays all fears of you ruining the watch. Remember, to buy professional, you have to seem professional.

I don't think I have to say at this point you better know what you are doing in removing watch backs, different watches require very different opening methods, you should be well versed in all of them so you don't damage your own collection or the watches you are looking at.

Bulova has a Beautiful metal and circuit board interior

I can't tell you how angry it makes me to see a case hacked up by an amateur. This lessens the value of the watch not only because of appearance, but because if the outside is hacked up, the idiot probably hacked up the insides too trying to change the battery and such. I can tell you horror stories about a watch I got that not only was hacked up, but also a cheap movement had been stuffed inside to replace the original and screws were missing..... we all have been taken at one time or another... at least I only paid a couple of bucks for the watch... and got my moneys worth!

Anyway enough ranting, lets get to what we find inside. Even without going into detail, we find we have been duped on the Dufont before we even start reading the inscriptions, it's obviously a cheap plastic movement, not the very worst, but not the movement that belongs on a hundred dollar plus watch. Generally I have a rule, "if the movements Black, don't look back", (meaning black plastic), I break this rule all the time for fashion watches, but I am always looking for a name I can trust, such as "Miyota", (Think "Toyota" to remember it), who make excellent plastic and metal watch movements. This movement os a "Morioka Tokei" no jewels and unadjusted. Morioka is OK, but will never be a watch you collect and hand down for generations.

You will also note the battery is literally falling out of the watch, this is not cool. Most excellent watches have a bracket to retain the watch on opening the case, so this shows us this is the very cheapest of movements, meant to last less than the time it takes for you to walk away. Lets leave this miserable specimen of a timepiece to its quiet repose, pop the back on and run, not walk, away whistling over what a clever person you are.

On inspecting the Bulova, it is love at first sight. Lovely, lovely metal and even a circuit board or two. look! A Battery Bracket! And those wonderful words, "Bulova, West Germany, Five 5 Jewels. And there the jewels are, little red dots on the metal board, gleaming at us, telling us that "we are for real."

At this moment it is very important to keep your game face. Squealing or crying out in joyful praise is not the right thing to do with the seller standing right there in front of you. Take a deep breath, straighten your face, wag your head dolefully and mutter something like, "It's a darn shame..." trailing off to dejected silence as you carefully replace the cover.

As the seller becomes concerned, he will ask what is wrong with the watch in question, you may reply truthfully, "Well, I expected much more for the price.." and trail off again, replacing the watch properly in its box or stand and turning to fiddle with something else on the table absently.

The seller should at this point counter with a better price and will hopefully beg you to take it away. Watches are a hard sell and often people break them at once when they try to clumsily put in a battery and then want their money back.

If the seller has any brains at all, he will want to see it in the hands of an experienced watch collector who will fix it himself instead of an irate amateur watch killer pounding on his door in the dead of night.

 Hopefully this will help you be a better watch buyer, this, of course is not all you should know and there are thousands of resources out there on the internet for getting to know more about watches and how to care for them, learn a bit about watches and you could end up with the gem like the Bulova above, I paid $5.00 for it and it's worth over $200 and is in excellent, very fine condition.