French cased rolex

[J@VIER]

Dear members, I would like to know your opinion regarding this.

It is widely known that Rolex and other swiss brands like Omega, Philippe Patek... during the gold embargo set by french government during the WW2 postwar years, used to send only movements and dials to France. Rolex gold watches where then often cased in non oyster gold french cases. A Perpetual incrtiption in the dial with no oyster reference in it was indicating that singulatity. The reason behind that seems to be that Oyster gold swiss cases were very expensive to export from Switzerland to France due to the high import taxes aplied to gold. These taxes could have caused a high french market loss for gold models.

That trick helped these brands to avoid the market loss in that country. Some speculate that some swiss laws ("Made in Switzerland") were violated by that practique but i dont want to enter to the legal nuances.

From my point of view these watches are part of history, french and rolex history, and despite their rareness, singularity and being the product of the political postwar french scenario unfortunatelly they are highly infravalued in the collector market in comparision to their swiis gold cased counterparts. I'd like to analize the reasons behind that.


Authenticity?

There are many evidences that point to the fact that these watches are authentic and were distributed by rolex in france.
I attach the picture of two french cased models (perpetulas) and a commercial rolex advertisement that evidence that rolex was commercializing these french cased models in france during postwar.

Gold case quality?
As far as i've been told some french case quialities are at least equal or sometimes even better than swiss counterparts.

The unique reason i can find behind is again in the collector's mindkind.
The fact to own a 100ç% swiss made case rolex, (but with simlar movement and dials ) despite their massive abundance in some models, seems to overcome in great terms the historical singularities and rareness of the french counterparts.

Any suggestions/debate will be welcome.