The Plymouth Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1869-1941, 1869-12-16
The OrOide Watch Trade.

| Ill u Ueiu, 50 lOOlS anu LnlcVcS thrive sue
by side in large city like New York.
| No man can be safe from the snares of the
latter, for the more extensive any legiti
mate business is, the greater inducement
| it offers to knaves and swindlers to coun-
| terfeit it. In nothing is this truth so ap-
parent as the watch trade.
We have in this city rs genuine i'm
porters aud wholesale traders, besides a
large army of retail dealers and others,
who are every year beaten in their bust
ness by the bogus watch importer, backed
| by about 80 dealers in the goods. Net
less than 100000 of these bogus and oroide
| watches were sold in this country last year,
and as the demand is constantly increas-
ing, the number disposed of this current
year will probably exceed this. Their
shops are usually slowed away in little
Railways, in dark Easements, or up two or
| three flights of stairs in some large build
| ing where there is likely to be great deal
| of traffic on other accounts. The extent
| of their profits is almost fabulous, for be-
ing in an illegitimate business, conceived
and carried on in deception and fraud,
these dealers have no scruples about the
means of disposing of their wares
Indeed, so extensive is the business trans
acted by some of the bogus watch dealers
that one of them on Broadway boldly pro-
claims the character of his trade, and yet,
we understand, sells from $4,000 to $40,-
600 worth month. Poor humanity loves
to be duped and swindled, and like gam
bling or drinking or any other passion,
when this desire to gain million by in
vesting thousand in lottery, or which
is the same thing differently applied, the
passion to get $3.50 gold watch for
81 in paper, grows upon man; he actu
ally places himself in positions to be
swindled. Now, strictly honest and
honorable man, who will not take thing
without rendering full equivalent, can
never be deceived by such flimsy shows
And yet some wellmeaning men are very
often deceived by these sharp and shrewd
ones.
In Switzerland the several pieces that
go to make the complete watch are made
at separate factories remote from each
other, and the matchmaker is the party
who puts the different pieces together.
The matchmaker purchases his stock by
the thousand or ten thousand pieces from
the different factories. AS consequence
of such want of system in making the
| different pieces, there are always large
quantities improperly finished and lmper-
feet. These imperfect pieces are again
| slightly altered and put together, and con-
stitute the movement for the OrOide watch.
| These movements are placed in brass
casses manufactured for this very purpose,
costing about seventy-five cents each, and
exported to England and America, where,
it has been definitely settled, the greatest
number of fools exist The French
| Government will not admit them unless
properly described, and the English Gov
ernment places them under the ban
| in so far as to prohibit the use
of genuine names or trade marks; but,
| like our own Government, it reaps profit
| from their importation and sale. These
are the famous OrOide watches. They are
worth, according to some of the largest
genuine practical dealers and watchmakers
in this city, from $3.50 to "a each. The
very best quality cost but $50 dozen.
They sell in the bogus stores for from 81
to $25 each, and, as our City Marshall
TOoker's complaint book can testify, often
for double and treble these sums
The bogus watch dealer dresses loud
and f1ashy. You may see him any day
on Broadway, Fulton, Nassau, and other
streets down town. He sports two or
more diamond rings on his fingers, and
sparkling diamond of immense size in his
shirt bosom. His attire is faultless when
he lays for wealthy game. But when LIE
wants to entrap the green countrymen, he
can put on seedy suit, and be very innO-
cent and hard up-ready, indeed, to part
with the gold watch for few dollars to pay
his board. The bargain appears to be so
great that the verdant is only too eager to
close it and pocket his prize. But after a
few days or hours he finds out that all is
not gold that glitters In his little cubby-
hole, the bogus is extreamly obsequious if
he thinks you want to trade, or if you
show any desire for spending dollar on
a chance. For, attached to nearly, if not
quite, every one of them is lottery game,
in which all the prizes are taken by the
bogus himself
To make the fraud more complete and
the better to deceive the too gullible pub
lie, the oroide dealers adopt the trademarks
of respectable manufacturers, and adver-
tise in the same style, and, as far as posi-
BILE, in the same papers throughout the
country as the legitimate manufacturers
and dealers. For instance, these dealers
know that the watches made at Waltham
are known by their different trade marks,
and numbered in proper order, and that
the gold cases are everywhere stamped,
indicating whether it is IA, 16 or IS carats
fine; and that the silver cases are all
marked coin silver, and American Watch
Co." stamped on the case. Thus the
American Watch Company makes watch
bearing the well-known trademark of p.
s. Bartlett, Waltham, Mass. On the imi
tatiOn watch Bartlett is marked BARLEY,
Waldhan, indicating clearly purpose to
deceive, and is sold by the bogus dealers,
with the private marks, numbers and
<Ixak &C lxl =
spelled Wdldham. The uninitiated would
hardly detect the substitution of the letter
"d" for at" in this fraud, and yet there
is no such city or town in Massachusetts
as Waldham, and of course the rogues
know it, but their dupes do not.
We examined the store of G +. Col
lins Il Co., wishing to see the styles of
watches they so freely advertise, and
found that those of the highest grade were
marked as "Waldham" watches. With
these watches he offers to give guaran
tee for one year; but we have been as
sured that the very best of those articles
will not keep correct time, nor average
more than six months to run at all.
The displayed advertisements are filled
with high sounding praises of the Oroides,
and newspaper comments of genuine
goods are cut out and inserted as commen-
dations of these swindes, which were
never designed to be praised They are ad
vertised as fulljewelled, adjusted to heat
and cold," to differences OF climate and
temperature, and warranted, and at the
same time offered for $25 each. Now, we
have the assurance of practical watch
maker and jeweler, that to merely adjust
the works of watch would of itself cost
$35-ten dollars more than the total cost
of these oroide swindles. OF course,
under these circumstances there must be
a swindle somewhere, and somebody must
be swindled.
1t is perhaps useless for us to warn the
infatuated who are locking for fortunes in
street cutters or i'm oroide lottery shops,
and never finding them; but to the hon.
cstly ignorant and unsuspecting into
whose hands this article may fall, we
would suggest that they pay no heed
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