Rare European steel Futurematic - should I restore the dial?

[frontfloater]

Hello folks,

This is my first post here, so please go easy on me...

I just bought this rare steel-cased Futurematic, branded "Automatic" which I understand was for the European market. I'm a trader, so the watch will be for sale once renovated. The movement is faulty so it will need a full service - but what about the dial? The auctioneer's description said "surface dirt on the dial", but it looks more like a stain to me. A trader who has one of these on sale told me that it would be more collectable with the dial left as-is, rather than getting it restored. I would welcome your opinions on that.

Via a Google search, I read that there may have been only 500 examples made of the European/steel watch - but I don't know where that opinion or fact came from. If anyone has firm data, that would be very helpful too.





Thanks,
BOB

[zafbasha]

The 500 figure is not accurate. It's much higher than that. Probably closer to 3-4000.

The watch would probably worth less with a restored dial.

[ChrisBry]

Why would restoring the dial make the watch be worth less? What am I missing? It's a beautiful piece btw, Frontfloater.

[zafbasha]

Generally speaking a dial restoration, i.e. a repaint reduces the watch value by 30 to 50% and on some rarer models even more. It's only original once and repaints never really match the print of the original.

[frontfloater]

Eventually.... It turned out that I did not need to consider the dial restoration decision, because that "stain" was just not there - it was entirely a trick of the vendor's camera, which is weird. The dial certainly has patina, but not such that I (or probably anyone) would want to mess with it.