Intriguing Smiths...prototype?

[M4tt]

Yes, I think the dial is real one and I think (can't be bothered to check though!) that the movement is a Welsh Smiths one, too.

It was that watch, though, that decided me on these cases being crap: one loose one and one shoddy franken is a bad pair. Had both cases been loose OR had the working one contained any rare or unusual or even high grade Smiths parts (eg a Mk XI or GS De Luxe dial or a gilt movement) then I might have been open to consider the possibility that these cases were of interest.

But, no, just junk.

Someone paid seventy quid for that case, too. :-(

I hope you will concede that this feels quite a long way from the case being unambiguously and obviously crap. You appear to be saying that, on its own terms, the cases really are not obviously rubbish and you relied on contextual information to finally decide. Which was my point all along. I agree they are almost certainly crap. However there's enough to them that it isn't unambiguously obvious and certainly not something everyone should be quite so sure about.

I wish I'd bid a bit more just to play with it. That's usually the real giveaway. If it had felt good I confess I might have tried to make something vaguely credible for the fun of it.