Tintin Forums

I am selling my rare Tintin Swatch (Les Adventures De Tintin GM165) on ebay.

This watch was released in 2004 by Swatch to celebrate 75 years of Tintin.

The watch is in fantastic original condition and has only been worn a handful of times.

Also included is the original Swatch box which does have very minor surface scratches. The Swatch is in full working condition and battery is included.

See the listing for more information.

I'm sorry, stratuside, but the picture of the watch posted on e-bay is not of the 75th anniversary Swatch but the Les aventures de Tintin model.

So, are you mistaken or inadvertently switched photos?

Moderator Note: Broken links have been replaced.

Well, I think that you are making a hair-splitting distinction here, between two watches both of which were issued for the 75th Anniversary in 2004, and neither of which is actually called the “75th Anniversary Swatch”, at least not by Swatch themselves.

The GM165 is indeed referred to as Les aventures de Tintin, but Swatch call the GM187-5 one Happy Birthday Tintin.

Even the site to which you linked (although they didn’t actually work, and have been replaced with a link to the Swatch site) says that the occasion upon which the Les Aventures watch was released was the Tintin 75th Anniversary.

On their site, Swatch even pictures a special watch-and-book-in-a-wooden-frame thing, which bears a plaque stating that it was for a special event in Brussels in 2004 - sounds like the 75th Anniversary to me.

I think the point you may be wishing to make is that the Happy Birthday watch is listed on the other site as being limited to 9,999 units, and it says nothing of a limit on the Aventures one.

But nothing which stratuside has said here or on eBay is inaccurate or false, as far as can be told, as they make no claims that their watch was limited (although strictly speaking, as it went into and out of production, it would be limited in that sense, and may not even have reached 9,999 units), so I think you might owe them an apology.

Dear Jock123,

Thank you for replacing the broken links by Swatch official ones. They where to the first images I could find on-line. Curiously I managed to access them again with no difficulty in a simple Google search. It doesn't matter.

As to what I wrote about the watches please read, carefully, again before making any assumptions. No accusations of falsehood are made nor implied. Can one be mistaken ? Of course, anyone can. Me or stratuside.

As to the watches, both issued in 2004, one in a limited edition (to which I made no reference so please don't assume what I mean) and displaying a visible 75 and the other ... not. One costly and the other, affordable.The Swatch Official site to which you so generously bothered to substitute the links I provided, doesn't help us as it says nothing on the subject. The watch-and-book-in-a-wooden-frame thing, doesn't help us either as the special event was, as the plaque says, the "Swatch The Club, Gold & Pioneer Event / International Tintin Event", held in Brussels from the 6 to the 9th May 2004 (sorry, not the 75th Birthday) as you can witness in http://home.arcor.de/folon2/brussels6.html.

So, I dug deeper and found an old 2004 report of a Swatch dealer stating "On 10-JAN, Swatch will release two watches to commemorate the 75th birthday of Tintin, the famous cartoon character of the writer Hergé. Both models will be Standard gents, of which one will be a limited edition. Here is a picture of the first Tintin special Happy Birthday Tintin (GZ 187, limited to 9999 pcs) and here is a picture of the second Tin Tin special Les Aventures de Tintin (GM165, not limited). Both specials look great!" (http://www.stay-tuned-to-sw.de/swatch_old_2004.html)

It seems both watches were released to the same purpose. I was wrongly convinced of the opposite as they were sold to me in that assumption. So I recant my statement on the Tintin Swatch (Les Adventures De Tintin GM165) not being an anniversary watch. Stratuside, wherever you are, I'm sorry.

Jorge Macieira

Good for you! When I tried, one came up with a one pixel image, and the other had a broken picture icon. The Swatch Site was the easiest place to find those same items, so that’s why I chose them.


Quite so, it doesn’t, does it? But I thought (and I hesitate to use the word “assume”…) that it was better to have people able to see any image than none at all.


No, that isn’t the case. You baldly said that the image of what stratuside has for sale isn’t what it he said it was - it’s in your opening statement.
Normally, I agree, in the course of the everyday back-and-forth exchanges in these forums, it probably isn’t the greatest of things; however, here we have someone basically being told they are making a false advertisement, and attempting to sell something in a possibly under-hand fashion. That’s a pretty important distinction.

It would be unfair for stratuside to lose a sale, or have his eBay reputation questioned, when everything he had said was (and is) true.

Maybe it’s just a cultural difference, but if, rather than coming straight out and telling him what he had said about his own object was wrong, you had instead offered the suggestion that this was in fact not what you had been told, and perhaps the situation was something else, it would have been better.


Indeed you didn’t: I was trying to think of a reason why you had flat-out contradicted another member, and giving you the benefit of the doubt that there might have been a confusion.

The international events in Brussels that May (which is when they often are, because of Hergé’s birthday) were themed on the 75th anniversary, but if you don’t think that’s relevant, fair enough.


That’s all I was asking for, really. Thank you for taking the time to make it.

thank you for the apology appletree and thank you jock123 for clarifying the details of this dispute.

no misinformation was meant on my part and when first viewing this watch (in the flesh) at the tintin maritime exhibition at the greenwich maritime museum in 2004 i was under the impression that the watch was part for the 75th anniversary of tintin, thus why my auction states as such.

regards,

stratuside

I assure you I wont prolong this exchange of views any longer but, and yes, maybe it's a cultural thing, perhaps I was greatly misunderstood. Please read the phrase again knowing that who wrote it was convinced that the other was in error or made a mistake: "I'm sorry, stratuside, but the picture of the watch posted on e-bay is not of the 75th anniversary Swatch but the Les aventures de Tintin model". And only two situations were foreseen: startuside being mistaken or inadvertently switched photos. Not even a hint of deliberate wrongdoing or plain commercial malice.

This can/could only mean that the messenger (me) was convinced stratuside was either in the wrong assumption of that being the (underline the, please) 75th anniversary watch or by accident posted the wrong picture. Now we know that there isn't an anniversary watch but two. The word "rare" did mislead me as in terms of rareness I have the other watch as rare (you don't find it any more in shops and the other ) and the "Les aventures" not so rare(he still briefly appears on occasion).
Was I to blunt ? Perhaps. Did it shock you ? So it seems. Sorry. I'll try to be more suave the next time. But don't make my speech bigger than it really was.