In recent years, Menta Watches, a.k.a. Adam Golden, has found some stunning watches. Famous is the Rolex ‘Paul Newman’ Daytona with Tiffany double signature, which he sold to hip-hop mogul Jay-Z. Golden’s latest discovery is even more impressive. An 18k gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona Ref. 6265 with ultra rare Red Khanjar dial, made in the 1970s for the Sultan of Oman. Only four are known to exist, five if we count the one with a gold dial. Now, the serial range fits, and the ‘Asprey’ engraving on the back is spot on, which is a testament to the fact that this is indeed one of the watches delivered to Oman through the former British Rolex retailer Asprey. However, about a year ago, the same watch was offered on Instagram to a series of dealers featuring a standard black ‘Sigma’ dial. Photographic evidence proves this beyond any doubt. Word on the street is that Menta bought the watch from the Omani owner in its original condition, and then performed the miracle of finding a fitting Red Khanjar dial for it. The only problem is that the dial is fake, and not a very good one, too. Trying to pull this kind of stunt in this day and age, is a sign of very bad judgement and is nothing short of full menta(l).

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Update May 10, 2025
To this day, Menta Watches, a.k.a. Adam Golden, has not denied any of the allegations. Instead, he claimed he was selling the watch on commission and made the mistake of not checking it properly. This is THE standard defense when watch dealers get caught with fakes. In one of his Instagram stories, he wrote: “People make mistakes. I even said to Jose in text that it seems good to me, but I am admittedly not the worlds [SIC] biggest Khanjar expert. I was welcoming his imput.” This is a lie! In our conversations, he never said any of this, or asked for my opinion. Had he asked, I would have felt compelled to tell him it is fake. Instead, he cast doubt on a real example sold recently at Phillips: “Btw, when I was doing my own research on these, I was looking at the Phillips one. That thing is fucked right? … The logo and Asprey stamp looked strange to me…and, well, Phillips. … I’m used to seeing high detail in the logos like the one I have and others online.” Fact is, even after he sent me the pictures, Adam never asked for my opinion on the watch, but offered to split his commission if I had a buyer for it.

Update May 8, 2025
Menta Watches is no stranger to controversy. In 2017, it was discovered that one of his super rare watches was cobbled-together from a loose dial sold on Chrono24.

Read more: Universal Geneve “Prototype” Compax (omegaforums.net)

Rolex Cosmograph Daytona Ref. 6265, 18k gold, ‘Red Khanjar’, 3752024

Menta published the watch in mid-April 2025 on their Instagram account. It took me just about 10 seconds to understand that the dial is fake. I immidiately asked for high resolution pictures to confirm my initial assessment. After first being ignored and lots of excuses, the pictures, which in terms of quality leave a lot to be desired, were finally provided. If you look at who liked the post and commented, it reads like the who is who of vintage watches. We have the auction house folks, prominent international watch dealers, high-profile collectors, and, of course, TikToker Mike Nouveau, who boasts about being a “vintage watch specialist”. Menta’s post got more than 3,300 likes and was shared 332 times! This gives you an idea of the sad state of knowledge within this – how to put it – herd?

(Menta deleted their post immediately after this article went live)

They all trusted Golden blindly. Let this be a lesson folks. The golden rule in this business should be: Trust, but verify! Ironically, Adam Golden has been trying to flatter me for the past two years or so. He brought up the prospect to appear in a film documentary about watches and discussed the importance of my work with Sacha Davidoff (Roy & Sacha Davidoff SA, Geneva) in a recent video on his Youtube channel. Watch until the end to see this thing come full circle.

It always felt awkward and suspicious, smelling of ‘keep your friends close – your enemies closer’. I guess I am not narcissistic enough to fall for cheap Jedi mind tricks of this sort. But I digress. Below on the left you can see what the watch looked like when it was offered to a series of dealers on Instagram about a year ago. Offered by someone from Oman, it has an original ‘Asprey’ engraving on the back. The ‘Superlative Chronometer Officially Certified’ dial with ‘Sigma’ designation at 6 o’clock is the dial this watch was born with. Not all of these pieces were delivered with a ‘Khanjar’ dial. By the way, the small ‘Sigma’ symbols left and right to the T Swiss T at 6 o’clock indicate that the applied dial markers, etc., are gold.

Case, bezel, and bracelet feature distinct scratches and dents that are as unique as a finger print. There can be no doubt that this is one and the same watch. Let’s look at the obvious flaws of the fake Khanjar dial. I will keep this as brief as possible and only point out apparent errors as to not give away truly crucial details to the falsificatori (Italian for counterfeiters). Yes, most high end fake dials are made in Bella Italia. So what they did here is quite clever. They took the original black dial of a gold Rolex Cosmograph, similar to the one depicted below, and removed the ‘Superlative Chronometer Officially Certified’ designation to make space for the fake Red Khanjar print.

That the removal of prints is possible without leaving any trace has long been established. Famous is a fake so-called ‘Solo’ Daytona I exposed in early 2018, where the Cosmograph print underneath the Rolex logo had been removed to double the value of the watch.

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A post shared by Jose Pereztroika (@perezcope)

The comparison below shows that the ‘Oyster’ print is not consistent with original Red Khanjar dials from this batch. The letters are too narrow, best visible by comparing the R. The Rolex print is also wrong for this batch, but less obvious.

If we look at the alignment of the ‘Rolex Oyster’ print, it is clearly off compared to known original dials.

The ‘Rolex Oyster’ print on the fake Red Khanjar dial is almost identical to later ‘Superlative Chronometer Officially Certified’ dials found in the 5 million case number range. This leads me to believe they used one of these later dials as a base. However, given the insane quality of counterfeits nowadays, it is entirely possible that the present dial is a complete fake. The counterfeiters may have used a standard printing pattern to keep the cost low. Also, the not-so-high resolution pictures provided by Menta are quite dark and not very sharp. Maybe purposely so?

Another flaw that immediately catches the eye is the wrong position of the 20 within the 30-minutes subdial at 3 o’clock. As you can see, on original dials, the bottom left corner of the 2 touches the edge of the azurage finish. People often refer to this finish as concentric circles but in reality, it is a spiral with a beginning and an end. The present dial is clearly off by a lot.

A similar situation can be found in the 12-hour subdial at 6 o’clock. As you can see, on original dials, the bottom side of 6 touches the edge of the azurage finish.

The original Red Khanjar dials found in this small 18k gold Daytona batch are unlike other dials. They were a special run made for this very purpose. The falsificatori thought they were smart, but they picked a wrong type of dial as basis. Had they just used the original ‘Sigma’ dial that was originally installed in the watch, the scheme would have been far less obvious. The fake Khanjar crest, I must admit, is printed in a never-before-seen quality. The falsificatori are restless. Their goal is to create perfect counterfeits indistinguishable from the real thing.

Although this fake Khanjar print represents a significant step forward in counterfeiting, it nevertheless features a series of errors, which will not be pointed out to deny these fraudsters anything that could improve their wicked products even more.

There you have it – it is just another regular day in Watchland.

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Thoughts

The present dial does not fool any serious dealer or scholar. It certainly should not have fooled someone like Menta, who refers to himself as “vintage watch expert” and is perceived as such by tens of thousands of people due to his YouTube channel and other social media content.

Belonging to a new breed of watch dealers, seemingly under constant pressure to find the next big thing in order to compete with others on social media, Adam Golden appears to have been sucked into the dark side. Sadly, and this point cannot be stressed enough, the world of vintage watches is riddled with scammers, charlatans and impostors. In an ideal world, putting a fake dial into a perfectly fine watch to scam collectors out of large amounts money, 700,000 USD to be exact, would end someone’s career. The value of the watch with its original dial would be less than a third. How many of these guys have been exposed over time? All of them are still in the business, as if nothing happened. The upper echelon of this trade appears to be short of honest people. Or perhaps they are all the same; some are just unlucky and get caught?

Take Italian super collector Sandro Fratini, for instance. He sold a fake Rolex Cosmograph ‘Yacht Master’ to an unsuspecting fellow collector for 2 million dollars. Allegedly, Fratini had the fake dial made in Italy for a few hundred bucks. A dial, nota bene, so comical, it is hard to believe anyone could be fooled by it. The other day, I learned that Jay-Z acquired a new vintage Rolex Daytona with diamond bezel that is depicted in Sandro Fratini’s book ‘My Time’. The book showcases part of Fratini’s collection and was created in conjunction with a major auction house. Let me tell you, many of the watches presented in that book are clearly fake or totally made up. How is it possible that after the ‘Yuck Master’ episode, Fratini is still able to sell his questionable watches? It simply boggles the mind. Jay-Z, if you are reading this, better get the new watch checked by an independent expert, and while you are at it, check also the Tiffany ‘Paul Newman’ Daytona you bought from Menta. If you’re havin’ watch problems, I feel bad for you, son. You got 99 problems and that damn Rollie might be another one.

Thank you for your interest.