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Has anyone ever snapped a winding stem in situ?

jimmyd13
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Long story short:

chap bought a Goliath pocket watch from the shop about 6 months ago; he came back in this week (I wasn't there) and was very argumentative with the staff. He claimed the crown on the watch "came out" and he had taken the watch to "lots of watchmakers" who were all "asking too much" and "saying it couldn't be repaired" and "I'm going to sue you all!".

Anyway, I spoke to the customer on the phone. Everything was very polite and I asked him to leave the watch (which he hadn't brought with him) for me to inspect and repair. All good.

I've just opened the watch and the stem is snapped inside the crown. The remainder of the stem is nowhere to be seen. The balance is intact and the watch runs the moment it's picked up or on a shake. There's no evidence of it being dropped. So, how hard do you have to turn the crown to snap the stem? I can't think that I've ever seen that done before. Has anyone managed it?
 
M'Bob
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You get a "like" for using in situ on a watch forum...
 
3nicewatches
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M'Bob M'Bob
You get a "like" for using in situ on a watch forum...
Make that two likes...one of my favorite expressions to over use in situations of questionable appropriateness (this situation was fine though).

Regarding the original question, I haven’t when winding mine, which I do often. They are all automatics though. Maybe @Archer will have some insight from all of his experience?
 
3nicewatches
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BTW, the customer’s claim that watchmakers told him it could not be repaired...surely not true, right, since sounds like you are repairing now?
 
jimmyd13
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3nicewatches 3nicewatches
BTW, the customer’s claim that watchmakers told him it could not be repaired...surely not true, right, since sounds like you are repairing now?
I think it's more a question of having the correct size stem ... and getting this friggin broken remnant out.

It's bugging me. This customer bought the watch for a very VERY good price. It was explained at length, in person, by me ... I know ... I was there (ha) that the watch had been inspected but not serviced. It was sold as seen. Yet 6 months of use later, where it's kept perfect time and operated well, it's got itself a snapped stem. If I could find a mark on the case, or if the balance had gone, I'd swear it had been dropped.

I'm going to let one of my local watchmakers do a complete service and inspection and I'll deal with the customer myself. I don't like customers bullying the girls in the shop. That's not their job. It's mine.
 
STANDY
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Since you hadn’t taken the watch apart how do you know it was not damaged or nearly snapped to start with. 😉
 
ahsposo
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Wait.

Did I miss the part where you warrantied the watch for what period of time?

Why is this your problem?
 
Archer
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3nicewatches 3nicewatches
Regarding the original question, I haven’t when winding mine, which I do often. They are all automatics though. Maybe @Archer will have some insight from all of his experience?

Given that I have no idea what this watch is, what the stem looks like, what the condition of the watch was when sold, me providing any input is going to be difficult. My very first thought was this actually:

STANDY STANDY
Since you hadn’t taken the watch apart how do you know it was not damaged or nearly snapped to start with. 😉

And my next thought was, what was the warranty offered?

The broken part of the stem in the crown is an easy fix...

https://omegaforums.net/threads/removing-a-broken-stem-from-a-speedmaster-crown.61416/

How this is handled will depend on a lot of things...
 
3nicewatches
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Archer Archer
Given that I have no idea what this watch is, what the stem looks like, what the condition of the watch was when sold, me providing any input is going to be difficult.

Of course, that’s fair enough. But I didn’t mean insight into this particular watch. I was just wondering if you might have ever come across someone, maybe sending a watch to you for repair, where they told you that they had snapped the stem during winding. I would think this would be very rare, but I don’t have the experience/knowledge to back that thought up.
 
Archer
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3nicewatches 3nicewatches
Of course, that’s fair enough. But I didn’t mean insight into this particular watch. I was just wondering if you might have ever come across someone, maybe sending a watch to you for repair, where they told you that they had snapped the stem during winding. I would think this would be very rare, but I don’t have the experience/knowledge to back that thought up.

Certainly stems do snap off - there's clear evidence of that that can be seen in many places (including in the thread I linked to above), so that's not in question. Based on what I've read from the OP, he is assuming it happened when winding, but he doesn't indicate that the customer actually said that...only that the crown came off.

Again how likely it is that this happened during winding is something I can't answer with the information provided.
 
3nicewatches
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Archer Archer
Certainly stems do snap off - there's clear evidence of that that can be seen in many places (including in the thread I linked to above), so that's not in question. Based on what I've read from the OP, he is assuming it happened when winding, but he doesn't indicate that the customer actually said that...only that the crown came off.

Again how likely it is that this happened during winding is something I can't answer with the information provided.
OK, very clear. Thanks for your responses.
 
TimtimeIntl
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The forum section on how to remove a broken stem says it happens. Infrequently in my experience. But how to placate your customer. I sold an 18K pink bumper Omega with a screw back case. I usually look at everything, especially the movement, but I had just gotten it and sold it quickly. Anyway, guy nicely complains that the caseback/threads are bad and will I take a return. I said yes and ate the sale. To this day I do not know if he or someone he took it too damaged it or the trusted (not anymore but I will never know) watch seller I got it from at a NAWCC watch show passed along a damaged watch at full value to me. Taught me to ALWAYS check my watches out. I sold it for scrap plus movement to a friend.
 
jimmyd13
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STANDY STANDY
Since you hadn’t taken the watch apart how do you know it was not damaged or nearly snapped to start with. 😉
Didn't ... but the fact that he (or rather his father - the watch was bought because the elderly father can't see a watch dial, hence the goliath pocket watch) has used it for the last 6 months implies that it wasn't falling apart.

ahsposo ahsposo
Wait.

Did I miss the part where you warrantied the watch for what period of time?

Why is this your problem?
No warranty offered with it. The price was reduced specifically because it was bought as seen.

Archer Archer
Certainly stems do snap off - there's clear evidence of that that can be seen in many places (including in the thread I linked to above), so that's not in question. Based on what I've read from the OP, he is assuming it happened when winding, but he doesn't indicate that the customer actually said that...only that the crown came off.

Again how likely it is that this happened during winding is something I can't answer with the information provided.
And you're absolutely correct. I'm venting a little after opening this watch to see what was where and operating only on the telephone conversation I had with the owner and the commiserating with the shop staff he'd been rude to.

To be absolutely clear, I offered to take the watch back and inspect it and repair. In offering to take it back, I had two plans of attack:

1) fix the watch free of charge simply as good faith;
2) if the repair was going to be expensive, re-imburse the cost price.

On inspecting, I started to wonder if he was pulling a fast one and the watch had been damaged rather than the stem simply failing. As I thought more to myself, I was wondering "when have I ever known a stem simply snap?". Couple that with the fact that the rest of the stem is probably in some jeweller's rubbish bin. What I can see (and there's no way in hell I can photograph this to show) is that the stem left in the crown has typical striations for a stress fracture.

But .. (don't you have opening a sentence with a conjuntion?) .. apparently the customer than proceeded to buy two more pocket watches. He wanted to buy an Albert chain too, marked at £60, but wanted a reduction. The chain is perfect and would scrap out at almost £50! I really don't understand people ... I just don't ..
 
Archer
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TimtimeIntl TimtimeIntl
The forum section on how to remove a broken stem says it happens. Infrequently in my experience.

It's not uncommon in my experience, but we may have very different levels of experience. It also is not always a sign of damage done by a watch owner, as there are circumstances where stems can break because the work done to the watch previously was not correct, and caused the stem to fail prematurely.

For example a few years ago I ran into a bunch of watches made by a specific brand that were not assembled correctly, so when the movement was clamped in the watch case, the stem was not properly aligned with the case tube. This one you can see the misalignment by the lines I've added to the photo:



This is a different example looking through the case tube to the broken part of the stem left in the movement:



Here's another on an Omega that came in with the stem snapped, and you can again see that the movement spacer and movement are not aligned properly with the case tube:



In this case every time the crown is used to wind the watch, set the date, or set the time, it is bending the stem and eventually it will work harden like bending a piece of wire back and forth and snap off. It's more common than you might think. Of course there are other reasons for crowns snapping off as well, so although I don't get one in every week or anything like that., it's certainly not a rare thing.

Cheers, Al
 
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