"Highway Gold" - A fake luxury watch

In the sixties and seventies, on gas station on the transit highways in southern europe, fake watches, heavy and gold-toned, were sold to travellers, which were in a hurry. These travellers believed, that they made a great deal, but when they later had to bring the watch to a watchmaker, their “highway gold” watches were discovered as fakes, which of course, did not contain a milligram of real gold.

The speciem shown here is a rather nice one, it was not often worn (maybe it was the “good” sunday watch) and so the very thing golden-toned color did not yet wash off. And when these watches were seen as an investement and not worn very often, their simple pin-lever movements did not cause trouble, too.

Btw - if you ever spot “Antimagnetic” on a such a watch, you can be assured, that it is a fake, since the manufactureres of the original watches would never print such a matter of course on a dial.

The very large gold “hallmark” on the back is pure fantasy. As you can see, large parts of the golden color of the back are already worn off.

On the inner side of the clasp, you also see a “gold hallmark”, but this one is made very badly, maybe the person, who engraved it, did not really have joy on his job. But on a quick sale on a highway, you probably won’t notice this detail.

The movement is a swiss EB 8481-74, made by Ebauches Bettlach. For such a fake watch, it is a pretty good one, but generally, it’s only a pin lever movement and won’t guarantee good precision and longevity - unlike the famous brand, printed on the dial.

A final remark: On each picture, the faked original manufactuers' name was hidden to ensure, that on one might think, that this is a real watch.