It is the only question that matters once the money is about to move. Assay answers it with an evidence-bound dossier on the exact watch in front of you — reference, condition, comparables, the seller, the landed cost — every claim marked with its source and its confidence, and every gap named rather than hidden.
Landed here from a forum, a group chat, or a dossier someone sent you? Start with the specimen →
Negotiate, and make the purchase conditional on independent inspection. Fund only through escrow.
Nine sections, in this order. The verdict comes first; the evidence that earns it follows, so you can reach your own conclusion from the same facts.
The recommendation first — proceed, negotiate, inspect, or decline — and the reasoning that gets there, including what would change it.
What it is, attribute by attribute, each stated at the confidence the evidence supports and no higher.
Every photo, document and claim, numbered and typed by basis. The spine the rest of the dossier points back to.
What does not line up, and what is simply missing — surfaced, not smoothed over.
What it runs to put right, in honest ranges — from a routine service to a full originality-correct restoration.
What the market actually paid for the closest set, with the sample’s limits stated plainly. A band, not a price.
Signals on the seller, the channel and the payment — read together, never a verdict on the person.
The real number: price, shipping, duty, escrow, inspection and reserve — modelled at target and at full ask.
All four paths, plainly, each with the single condition that selects it. The recommended path is marked.
The advisor speaks in serif — judgement and recommendation. The record speaks in mono — facts, sources, values. You feel which is which before you read a word. Every claim is typed by where it comes from, and rated on a ladder that stops short of false precision.
Assay will not call a watch genuine, stamp it authenticated, or forecast what it will be worth. Those are verdicts — and verdicts, confidently issued, are exactly what has failed buyers.
of watches sold on a curated, authenticate-everything marketplace still fail that marketplace’s own check and are returned. This is the careful end of the market.
A vintage ‘Yacht-Master’ changed hands in a private deal with a top expert’s authentication report backing it. The report was wrong.
of buyer protection on the private, off-platform deals where the sharpest prices — and the worst frauds — both live.
So Assay bounds the evidence instead. Every claim carries its basis and its confidence; where the record goes silent, the dossier says so. You leave with a decision you can defend — not a certificate you have to take on faith.
Marketplaces protect the transaction after you have bought. Assay evaluates the decision before you commit — including the private, off-platform deals no marketplace covers, which is exactly where the sharpest prices and the worst outcomes both concentrate.
$495 flat — about 1% of the watch. Know before you wire. The first 25 dossiers run at the $295 founding rate, and the fee is credited in full if Assay later executes the acquisition for you. The dossier is the same at either price — and either is a fraction of what the unresolved question costs when it goes the wrong way.
This opens your case. The listing and its source are all we need to begin; photographs, papers and messages attach as evidence once we are in.