A bit of background, I went to a private school, not a posh one, but one that primarily had forces kids in it, back when there was a generous grant available for forces personnel and their families for such things to help maintain a consistent education for children that usually moved from camp to camp every 3 years or so, Ive kept in touch with a lot of my mates from there and in the early part of the year, one of those mates made a Facebook post, 'anyone know anything about watches, is it worth getting this repaired and whats it worth?' and posted a photo of a sorry looking SM300 missing its bezel, a relumed dial etc, the story is that his dad wore it in the Falklands war ( that was a mad time when I was at school as a lot of pupils dads were deployed there at the time so we all gathered around a small telly to watch the news as it unfolded) and lost the bezel there, he was a Para so my pal doesn't know how he ended up with the Navy issued watch. I gave him the usual advice in the thread and by PM, don't get it 'restored', at most, polish the acrylic by hand, don't sell it to anyone who gets in touch, its a very valuable watch and worth north of 10k but hard to say exactly etc etc. He was amazed that it could be that valuable but didn't have the means to source a bezel after I told him how much they could cost. Fast forward to this week and I get another PM, he had put it to a auction, I didn't ask which one and would I have a guess how much it made, I was pretty far off at £15k, the hammer price ended at £25k, he was gobsmacked and very happy, so was I for him, until I asked about the fees etc, he will end up with £15.5 k, which is a lot of cash for something he had no clue about, but I think thats pretty scandalous! Sure the fees were transparent before he listed it, but bloody hell! Anyway, he's happy which is all that matters, I can't help feeling he should have asked me about finding a specialist dealer first.