Piaget Watch Authentication & Valuation

Kirkdj's forum post highlights the challenges of authenticating and valuing inherited vintage timepieces, especially when documentation is scarce. His experience with a Piaget-signed watch, initially believed to be a valuable antique, underscores the importance of expert verification beyond initial impressions. This thread serves as a cautionary tale and a practical guide for those navigating the complexities of vintage watch provenance and market value.

This is a Piaget antique gold watch, it was inherited from my wife’s mother; the precise history of this watch is unknown, but it is definitely prior to 1970.  It is solid  14kt. gold, with approximately 35 diamonds of various sizes.  The watch band and clasp are in excellent working order. The watch itself does not work but the hands will turn; also the watch crystal is missing.  Six of the diamonds have been removed from two different mounts located at the end of each row of diamonds, three diamonds on each end (shown in pics), but all the diamonds are with the watch. 

We are interested in selling the watch in its current condition without investing in restoring it to proper working condition.  Can you please recommend to us the best course to achieve this (auction, sale, etc.) If interested, we would appreciate if you could give us an initial estimate based on the attached photos.  We had one jeweler look at the watch, he was completely unfamiliar with Piaget watches, but he valued just the raw materials of the watch in the neighborhood of $4000......and I believe that was just a guess.

This watch is very unique and we are at a loss of knowledge to accurately describe it to give it justice........If anyone can provide a jewelers description of this watch, it may be very helpful. 

We wanted to sell this watch to someone that appreciates the Piaget quality; we recently took this watch to the Piaget store in New York and they were very impressed with the watch; but they do not purchase any jewelry. They recommended bringing the watch to either Christie’s or Sotheby’s for auction or to Windsor Jewelers.  We wanted to find out as much info as possible such as history/era of the watch.......from my online research it appears to be before the era of the 1957 slim line watches introduced.  The Piaget store tried to read the serial but they said it was worn off.  The only thing readable of the back is  "4 kt. G"

Please let us know if you can provide info on the history and approximate worth of this Piaget watch or other pertinent info that will be helpful in selling this watch …..