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This is part two of my guide that talks about what things you should watch out for when physically examining a used rolex for sale. You can see part one of the guide here: used rolex, an examination guide part 1.

Tip #5 -Look for straight, not kink, bracelet

For rolex, the bracelet is a finely craft piece of jewelery. There is no room for uneven placement of the metal pieces that formed the bracelet. Use this fact to help you examine whether the used rolex is real or fake. Take the watch and hold it over a soft surface with the watch facing down. Then, look at the links in the bracelet. Make sure they are hanging nice and smooth. The bracelet is what holds the watch to your wrist and it accounts for a lot of the value of the whole watch.

Tip #6 – Real rolex has no clear back cover

Many of the fake rolex watches have a clear window on the back that allows you to see the mechanism. Although this may look awesome, it is a big give away that the used rolex is a fake. This is because rolex has yet to make a watch with a clear back cover. Hence, once you can see the inside of the watch from the back, be assured that it is not the real thing.

Tip #7 – Look out solid winding stem, rather than glued on crown

This is a more difficult tip as you need to look carefully at the winding stem of the watch. Pay attention to the part used to set the date and wind the watch on non-automatic models. A real rolex should have its crown trademark molded into the end of the stem. If you can’t locate the crown, forget the deal as it is very likely a fake. However, even if it does have the crown, you must take a good look at another important aspect: the stem from the side. The real rolex will mold the crown together with the winding stem as one piece while a fake rolex only has the crown glued onto the end of the winding stem.

Tip #8 – A real rolex has triplock seals

Most of the rolex models, like the Submariner, Sea-Dweller and Daytona, use an extra seal within the threads of the winding crown’s tube. To see this extra seal, you need to fully unscrew the winding crown. The gasket looks like a small o-ring. Most of the fake rolex do not have this extra seal. Even for those fake rolex that do, the seal is not functioning. A real rolex has been finely instrumented so if you got a rolex of which the winding stem doesn’t unscrew to set the time, or is loose after doing so, you know you’ve got a fake in your hands.

Tip #9 – Look out for moving holograms on real rolex

Every rolex from the factory comes with a Hologram-encoded sticker on the back of the watch. This hologram can be identified by the trademark crown sitting above the watch’s reference number. The important thing is that these holograms can give you different images from different angles. This is the litmus test that most fake rolex will fail as they usually have hologram stickers that don’t change appearance.

With that, it brings me to the end of this two part guide. If you want to used rolex, this is a handy guide to help spot the difference between a real and a fake rolex.