Hi everyone,

just wanted to ask someone about the rarity and "fair" prices on issued Blancpain divers.

Currently I have been looking to add one to my collection and have come across several in my travels.

The first being the Polish MW issue with the AS 2066 movement. The second being a German Bund issue with the AS 1700 movement. The last one I found was Polish issue with the moisture disc indicator on the dial. All of them are in good working order (but unfortunately all over 1800 euro each).

I am aware of the Bund/German issued watches (courtesy of Konrad's military watch research in his book), although the Polish issues I can find little about. From reading the extracts of other watch forums, it appears several of the Polish ones were restored in a large batch and sold to the private market.

Does anyone know any additional information about the later Polish divers and whether they are deemed as collectible as the German/bund issued?

Thanks in advance

Stuart

Hi Stuart,

I have no information about the Polish issued examples nor the current prices of these vs. the Bund issue. Maybe one of our other readers can help us here?.

My guess is that the German issued watches will hold their value, due in large part to being mentioned in Konrad’s book, and of course they are excellent watches. One of the Polish contract watches may be an excellent investment, if the contract was small and the watch is genuine and in excellent condition.

(I see so many toys but have so few pennies in the piggy- bank! )

Best regards,

Greg

Thanks Greg.

There is quite a few Polish issued Blancpains at the website http://www.watchdeco.com/fiftyfathoms/

Really beautiful these watches..... I wish I had a bigger bank balance.

Thanks again

Stuart

I don't know about the Blancpain divers, but I do know the Omega and Rolex divers with military markings have been extensively counterfeited, either in total or just in having new military dials and engraved backs added to authentic but civilian movements to take advantage of the high prices the rarer military versions sell for.

Another thought is I can't help but wonder if Polish Blancpain divers are real and rare, then how did that one website get so many of them and why are they all in mint or near mint condition? Especially if they actually were real military watches issued to real military guys and subjected to daily wear and heavy abuse?

Maybe I am being too suspicious, but the bad guys are definitely out there manufacturing "instant collectables" it is "buyer beware" these days especially on the higher priced material.

Thanks Jim.

The current claim (from what I have read in various forums), is that the Polish issued watches were released in the 90s as a batch of "restored"....High polish of the whole case (I think they refer to it as a "Reed" polish...does that sound familiar?) seems to be one key feature of these watches. Various NOS parts were used, but to what extent no one really tells you.

There are futher examples of two others at www.classicwatch.com in the military section.

One thing is for sure, they are priced as high as the "Bund" issued Blancpain. The later Bund I am sure, rarely go through the same treatment before release into the market.

In terms of design I think they are a classic. In terms of availability they appear to be both as rare (both the Polish and Bund).

I would also recommend caution on the watches listed in Stuart's link. Very good questions and comments from Jim Hester.

With respect to the comments about the Watchdeco site, it is a photo documentation from different collectors which have these watches (similar to the Jaeger and IWC Mk11 documentation).

There is an article in "La Revue des Montres", February 2004 issue, by S. Ciejka, that apparently covers the details of the Polish issued Blancpain.

I agree with you guys about caution, but from what I read the Polish Navy did issue these watches.

I couldn't find a copy of the reference I have found above....but I did manage to find a Blancpain store that had a reprint.

I have copies of the last pages featuring the Polish issued watches. They were issued in the mid 1970s with AS movements 2063 & 1902.

The reprint was a part of the 50th anniversary release of the "Fifty Fathoms" by Blancpain & we would hope that they wouldn't have printed these images if they were fake.

In defense of the watch site I have listed above, several images are from the same watches on the watchdeco website. The last line of the article also lists the watchdeco site as a historical record of the "fifty fathoms" military watches.

Hello everyone.

In light of what I have found through Blancpain directly and what I have been observing with the sale of apparent "Polish military issued" Blancpain, there appears to be a disturbing trend.

Alas a few months ago I was quite keen on buying a one of these watches and what I found at Blancpain was quite positive about the origin of the Polish issues.

Although, what appears to be happening is that there are several "put together" watches that are flooding the market. They have all the right parts, but were never military issued (the sheer number of them would mean Poland would have had a very large Navy indeed during the 1970s).

Not to put anyone off from buying one, but I'd be careful about what you see on the market today. If anyone out there has experience with these watches and knows how to spot a genuine from a fake, that would be of great help to us all.

Alas I'd have to agree now with early posts and beware.

Stuart,

If you have not already checked, another place to post questions about these watches is over on the Military Watch Resource discussion page.

MWR-BROADARROW

There are alot of collectors over there who are into Blancpain and other high-end divers watches.

Best regards,

Greg

Hi Stuart.

The market in modern production (WW II through to the present) high end military wristwatches has been flooded with all kinds of parts watches, spurious military markings added to civilian version watches and outright fakes. Most of these seem to be coming out of Eastern European and Southeast Asian countries, along with China and Russia. The technology, expertise and abundance of underemployed experienced watchmakers to create these fantasies is readily available as are poorly enforced laws for such wicked activity.

Another way some of these nasties are created in these countries is the bad guys bribe workers in the real brand-name factories to go in after hours to churn out watches "off the books" on the real machinery but without the quality control.

Flooding the market in high end modern wristwatches began many years ago with ordinary Rolex watches. These days pretty much everyone knows that the number of fake Rolexes, both obvious and nearly impossible to detect ones, are far more common on the secondary watch market than real ones. Now that military versions of Rolexes as well as all of the other big name brands are going for such huge prices, the clever forgers have naturally expanded their product lines to meet the demand.

How do you tell whether a particular watch is real or a forgery? I think the only way to be sure is to buy it directly from the guy or family of the guy to whom it was issued with some documentation of the guy wearing it back when he was in the service to go with it. So far as I know the watchmaking companies themselves will not normally inspect and certify a watch as being theirs. The way around this might be to send it to them for a servicing and pay the very high price they charge for this. If they see that the watch is not theirs, they will refuse to service it. Buying from a highly reputable dealer is another option, but my personal opinion is that at best you could only be 80 certain that you are getting an original watch since even the best experts can be fooled by the best forgers.

There are some easy to detect forgeries that are pretty sloppy. For example, if you take a look at the Broadarrow forum website, which I also recommend especially for modern era military wristwatch enthusiasts, you will see discussions of Omega Seamasters with "stubbies" on the markers on their dials as a quick "tell" that it is a fake. However, this information has been public for a number of years now, and what forger with two braincells to rub together wouldn't have learned about it and corrected their technique to do these dial markers correctly now?

I also recommend the Broadarrow forum website. Broad arrow also sells military issue watches on their main site. There was another good point made above. Think about the likelyhood of the Polish Navy issuing world class quality wrist watches in the 1970's. In the 1970's, even the U.S. Armed forces were severely under funded..hmmm.