You just bought a Vintage Watch or did you? Time to Find out about ETA

You just purchased an old vintage watch and you think you got an authentic collector's item. The seller even guaranteed the authentitcy of the watch. You open the back and right on the movement is etched in nice characters the name of the watch. You may want to check and  see what you actually bought. In many cases you bought an ETA watch. Also known as ETA SA Manufacture Horlogère Suisse. Oh, this is considered a monopololy the swiss watch industry. The have purchase the naming rights to:

Accutron, Bulova, Hamilton, Mido, Oris, TAG Heuer, Tissot and Certina, Breitling, IWC, Longines, Fortis, Officine Panerai, Omega, Porsche Design, Rado, certainly among others.

Once in a banker's office he showed me his Christmas gift. He paid in excess of $5000 for a Breitling. He felt proud and then gave me the speil about how the only jewelery men purchase and/or wear is a watch. He bought an ETA movement in a case. The watch may have contained a Quartz movement or a manual movement. Regardless, he bought a Swatch watch.
ETA movements are not only found in the watches named above, you can find them in  Counterfeit watches, sometimes known as Knockoffs or Replicas.

I have seen a number of watches on Ebay advertised as a vintage watches. It didn't take long and by finding either the date of the watch's manufacture or the model, I jumped back a bit and realized the watch had an ETA movement with the name etched on the back. One vender even sells fittings to make ETA movements fit high value watch cases.

Finally, do some research to find out if you bought the real thing or not. Many ways of testing watches exist. Learn them or ask someone who knows.

Respectfully submitted,

Tom Adelstein