letter to editor on hodinkee about vintage repairs

[gwells]

http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/letters-to ... -conundrum

also an interesting comment:

I have an early 2000's Rolex GMT Master-II. Recently, after washing my hands I realized that I left my crown unscrewed when I last synced my watch with the atomic clock.(OCD) Some water had splashed onto my wrist, and I knew that there was an O-Ring on the stem that should protect the movement from water (provided the O-Ring is intact) even with the crown unscrewed. However, being the meticulous guy that I am, I wanted to be sure. I had previously contacted the Lititiz Watch Technicum because I knew the school had been founded and built by Rolex to ensure that there would be a steady supply of watch makers in the U.S. to service their timepieces. The school has a very rigorous full-time academic program which takes two full years to complete. The admissions person that I spoke to gave me the name of two of their graduates in my area. One worked at a Rolex AD. I gave the guy a call, and he told me to bring the watch in at my earliest convenience. I brought the watch in on the same day. First, he was very impressed that I had heard of Lititz, and told me that he had never had a customer who knew anything about it. He took my watch back to the work area, opened the caseback and inspected the movement, and pressure tested the case. It passed with flying colors, and I was reassured. Call the schools in your area, and they may give you the name of someone who can help you.

[jtbenson]

interesting article, and pragmatic advice in that comment

[toxicavenger]

Damn that is a serious school:
SCHEDULE

LWT offers a very intense two-year, year-round, 3,600+ hour program.

• New classes begin every September and end two years later in mid-August.

• Classes are held five days a week (Monday-Friday), from 7:30 am to 4:00 pm, with a 30 minute break for lunch.

• Our holidays consist of approximately two weeks over the December holiday season and approximately two weeks mid to late August. We also allow for a 4-day weekend for Easter and a 5-day weekend for Thanksgiving, along with several traditional Monday holidays.

[sierra11b]

This is something I always consider with every purchase now.

It's also why I embrace quartz and commonly owned watches. Everyone and their brother might own a Moonwatch but that also means there's a surplus of parts. Your $15000 LE might be unique but good luck getting it serviced a couple decades from now. Strength in numbers or quality quartz seems to be the answer unless you're willing to spend Patek money or companies are willing to provide servicing alternatives (providing parts to makers, etc).

I like the top comment a lot. I would really like for Seiko to state their policy clearly... For some the manual says 10 yr guarantee on parts whereas for Credor their mission is something very similar to Patek. I have no doubt their cache of parts goes beyond 10yrs for a lot of their models but it's still confusing and disconcerting.

[Mr_Pacman]

This isn't just an issue with vintage watches, but also the lesser expensive mechanical watches that are newer.

My wife has 2 swiss army ambassador watches with an ETA automatic movement. THe MSRP on the watches was $600 and I picked up each one for $250, which is a reasonable price for this brand as they are discounted heavily. They are both running slow and need a service. The dilemna is, do I pay $250 to service a watch that's worth $150 in used, working shape......or do I sell them "as is", re-coup what I can and put it towards something else.

I never usually keep watches long enough to have them serviced, but I wonder what's going to happen in 5 years when all of these boutique and micro brand dive watches with basic ETA movements need to get serviced. I'm sure the price to service a basic ETA 2824 is not far off the price to service a 2824 in a Tudor/Omega/Breitling etc. ARe people going to pay to service them, or will they simply dispose of them and buy another new watch?