The particular MN SCH auctioned at Artcurial gives proof it is a legit product, see your very own coverage of the watch.
One could say it is all fake, paperwork included, but than, my very own watch comes into play, I have it in my procession for round about 10 years, the story how I got it is covered in this particular forum here. The watch was not shown to the public before the Artcurial auction happend, so noboby could have copied the engraving design.
From a scientific-historical point of view it is legit whatsoever. My watch proofs the other and vice versa.
As a side note: during the JLC book project, Zaf and I decided not to picture the watch since we were unable to proof if fake or real thing.
The missing Geophysic movements:
There is a significant gap between the officially produced P478bwSbr movements and complete Geophysic watches, may it be antimagnetic or the de luxe variant.
I personally found two 37mm plated brass case watches with that particular movement, one is in procession of James Dowling.
Some single movements popped up one of these was NOS coming from Watchco, who sold literally a gold mine of JLC stuff in the good ol' days.
The two 37mm watches and my MN SCH came without stop lever, obtaining these levers is quite simple since I once bought the entire RAF spare parts inventory for the Mk11, and some - here hyped - German watchmaker simply has stollen 50% of my parts. So the supply is out of any control.
JLC has no tracking for their complete watches, they simply can't tell which vintage watch was sold where (except military or contracted limited watches), what they do is taking the 'golden book' of movement serials and convert it to complete watches shown in vintage catalogs; or crystal clear:
They can NOT tell if a watch is having it's original movement it was 'born' with. Taking this into account makes this "extract from archive" useless since it is just an extract from the golden book in releation to watch references. Unfortunately JLC is not PP!
So asking for a certificate is waste of money, since - any thats why - they do this:
[quote]They do not take the current state of the timepieces into account and cannot be deemed certificates of authenticity. [/quote]
The two JLC theme auctions were co-sponsored from the manufacture, it is not my cup of tea that there was plenty of shill-bidding and questionable watches offered, while the primary target was pushing the Tavannes red dial Reverso and the Deep Sea remakes (homages).
It was marketing in its pure and simple way.
For JLC's so called archives I suggest to read 'Reverso the living Legend' from 1991 very very carefully.
Cheer,
Ilja
This message has been edited by Ilja on 2013-05-25 06:28:50