How can I tell if a luxury watch is real?

Start with the seconds hand — an automatic movement glides, a quartz one ticks — then the caseback, the weight and the bezel action. Pick the manufacture below for the checks specific to it, because the houses hide their identity in different places.

Can I look up a watch serial number?

Rarely. Most manufactures run no public database. Omega, Patek Philippe and IWC will issue an archive extract for a fee, which is the closest thing to a lookup and is genuine evidence; Rolex will not confirm a serial at all.

What is a superclone watch?

A counterfeit using a cloned mechanical movement running at the correct frequency, with a correct-alloy case and decent engraving. Superclones defeat the ordinary checklist and are identified by dial printing at high magnification and by movement finishing, which needs the case opened.

Does a replaced dial make a watch fake?

No. A service dial fitted during honest repair is genuine and correctly installed. It does substantially reduce a collector's valuation, which is a different question and often the more expensive one.

Does The Lovenhall Registry authenticate watches?

No. The house makes instruments and publishes the checks; it issues no certificates and takes no watches in. For a formal opinion, use a watchmaker with experience of the manufacture.

Lovenhall Watch

Authenticate a luxury watch

The manufactures the room reads, the checks that can be made on the wrist, and the ones that honestly need a watchmaker.

10 manufactures16 modelsFree · no account

A watch hides most of its evidence inside the case, and opening a case badly costs more than the question is worth. So these pages front-load what can be read without tools — how the seconds hand moves, whether the caseback is solid, how the bezel clicks, what the watch weighs — and say plainly which checks need a movement to be seen.

Every manufacture is different in where it hides its identity. Rolex fits no display backs at all. Omega, Patek Philippe and IWC will read their own archives for you. Cartier conceals its name inside a Roman numeral. Panerai's crown bridge is a mechanism rather than a shape. One generic checklist reads all of them badly.

The house authenticates nothing and charges for nothing. These pages teach the checks and say when a watch is worth a watchmaker's twenty minutes.

How the reading goes

Four movements, in this order

The order matters more than the list. Two checks settle most cases, and they are almost never the ones people reach for first.

Watch the seconds hand first

An automatic movement beats several times a second and the hand appears to glide; a quartz movement ticks once. On a manufacture whose reference is mechanical, a ticking hand ends the discussion before anything else is checked.

Then the caseback, then the weight

Some houses never fit display backs and some always do. Case metal, movement mass and shielding components give a watch a specific weight, and a counterfeit that saves on any of them feels wrong in the hand immediately.

Use the archive services that exist

Omega, Patek Philippe and IWC will confirm a watch's production date and original configuration from their own records for a fee. That is real documentary evidence and it is available to the public — Rolex offers no equivalent.

Open the case only through a watchmaker

The movement is the decisive evidence on any watch above a modest value, and reading it is a routine service-counter job. It costs a small fraction of the watch and it is the only way to defeat a good clone.

The case

Every manufacture the room reads

One page each, in the manufacture's own terms — its code system, its weighted checks, its models and what they do on the secondary market.

Rolex

1905

The most copied watch on earth, and the one where four seconds of looking at the seconds hand settles most cases.

Read the checks

Omega

1848

Where the movement is the evidence, and the maison actually publishes an extract from its archives.

Read the checks

Cartier

1847

A jeweller before a watchmaker, so the case, the cabochon and the secret signature carry the read.

Read the checks

Patek Philippe

1839

The maison that will read its own archives for you, and whose finishing no counterfeit reaches.

Read the checks

Audemars Piguet

1875

The Royal Oak's tapisserie dial and its case bevels are two things a factory cannot copy cheaply.

Read the checks

Tudor

1926

Rolex's sister house, with its own movements now — and a vintage market full of replaced parts.

Read the checks

TAG Heuer

1860

High volume at an accessible price, which produces a great many fakes and a great many genuine watches with service parts.

Read the checks

Breitling

1884

The slide rule on a Navitimer has to actually work, which is a check nobody expects.

Read the checks

IWC Schaffhausen

1868

A maison whose soft-iron cage and case construction are engineering choices a fake cannot replicate.

Read the checks

Panerai

1860

The crown-protecting bridge is a mechanism, and a fake usually makes it an ornament.

Read the checks

The free tools of the room

Genuine or Replica What is my watch worth?Watch accuracy checker Watch insurance value

The other rooms

Authenticate Diamond Authenticate Art Authenticate Bag

Questions we are asked

How can I tell if a luxury watch is real?: Start with the seconds hand — an automatic movement glides, a quartz one ticks — then the caseback, the weight and the bezel action. Pick the manufacture below for the checks specific to it, because the houses hide their identity in different places.
Can I look up a watch serial number?: Rarely. Most manufactures run no public database. Omega, Patek Philippe and IWC will issue an archive extract for a fee, which is the closest thing to a lookup and is genuine evidence; Rolex will not confirm a serial at all.
What is a superclone watch?: A counterfeit using a cloned mechanical movement running at the correct frequency, with a correct-alloy case and decent engraving. Superclones defeat the ordinary checklist and are identified by dial printing at high magnification and by movement finishing, which needs the case opened.
Does a replaced dial make a watch fake?: No. A service dial fitted during honest repair is genuine and correctly installed. It does substantially reduce a collector's valuation, which is a different question and often the more expensive one.
Does The Lovenhall Registry authenticate watches?: No. The house makes instruments and publishes the checks; it issues no certificates and takes no watches in. For a formal opinion, use a watchmaker with experience of the manufacture.

Lovenhall Watch

Read the watch itself

The checks tell you how it was made. The instrument tells you what it appears to be, and roughly what its kind fetches.

Open the Watch IdentifierFree on iPhone & iPad. An estimate, never an appraisal.

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