I just sold one of the most beautiful watches I have ever seen to one of my best customers. An 18ct exploding dial Longines but with the numbers in two-tone gold as opposed to solid black. Even the exploding dial Patek which Doyle had a few years ago (with the broken lug) wasn't as nice as this. And that one sold for between 1.25 and 2.6 bloody fortunes!



It is so nice that I took it in to my repairer for a service and he reported, curiously, that it didn't need it! The beat is, as would be expected for a watch which I had been wearing without problems and with a replaced hour hand, fine.

But I am having a peculiar problem. The buyer (who has 350 watches, so isn't exactly a novice) LOVES it but he reported that it was not working

When It arrived back tt was stopped at 5.25, with fouling hands! Which it certainly wasn't when I wore it (for lengthy periods) So I took it back to the repairer who checked it and took the dial off to repair it!

The buyer then reported that it was losing, irregularly, 10 minutes a day. So I took it back to the repairer again and asked him to check the canon pinion.

The buyer now reports that "When I wind the watch and leave it on my desk, it keeps time. When I wear it, it loses about ten minutes every couple of hours." So i assumed he must have taken it off and put it on a laptop and I shipped him my demagnetiser!

(He doesn't report that it is solving the problem)

Is there anything obvious I may be missing here if this still doesn't solve this problem? To me, that report can only normally point to a canon pinion but that has been checked and is not the problem.

 

On the way to deciding what the problem might be, one needs to decide what the problem(s) aren’t! And the process of elimination can only be done, hands on! Not over the internet!

 

It needs a service unfortunately. There are too many possibilities for such a time loss in a vertical position.
It might have shipped without damage even and your client is in a warmer climate leading to the balance wheel touching another part (just an example).

 

Not sure I dare tell one of my best customers that! He'll probably ask me why that possibility wouldn't apply to any of his other watches. It's not as if I live in Spitsbergen and he is in summertime-Miami

 

It would be nice if your customer could put it on a timegrapher. That could help with the canon pinion diagnosis.

 

Unrelated to accuracy, do you believe the hands to be original?

 

If this is one of your best customers, and you want to keep it that way, get the watch back and have a full service done. Make sure the watchmaker does a full slate of after service testing - scenarios like this are why I put every single watch I service on the test winder - automatics, manual winds, and even quartz...it can show things like hand interferences, etc. that static testing sitting on a bench just can't show you.

 

Somewhere between what you say about the service history of the watch, the abilities of the guy who “serviced” it, how the customer uses it, and what the customer says about the performance, lies the answer. Beauty is unto the eye of the beholder.

 

I agree with Archer, this one needs a service and testing to be sure.

I agree with Archer, this one needs a service and testing to be sure.

 

I don't like disagreeing with you guys and I NEVER disagree with Archer but it is just such an unusual experience, taking a watch in for a checkup and service and being told that it doesn't need it!

Not sure which is more unusual, being told that a watch doesn't need a service or being told that a watch which I had been wearing is ten minutes out every couple of hours. After I have sent him my demagnetiser. (I just assumed he had taken it off and laid it near a speaker magnet in a cellphone or on top of a laptop

Anyway I am seeing him at a show this week-end. I'll get it back (if it didn't de-magnetise) and service it.

 

I think the hour hand could be a replacement, doesn't match the other hand very well at all.
Also looks bent, but that may be lighting/reflections.

 

The first ting that came to my mind is that 5'25 (in fact a little later) is when the hands cross each other. Are you sure they don't touch each other? It happened to me a few times when I began watchmaking. It took me a while to spot it.
I'm not saying this is THE problem.

 

FWIW My repairer figured out this problem.

It was a cracked jewel.

 

Cracked jewels are something that should be checked early and often.

Not surprised here as jewels and pivots are easy to overlook. Especially when the watch seems to be running.

 

I once read in an article that the only effect is usually that the òil at that pivot seeps äway

 

Cracked jewels cut can the pivots and cause burrs. This in turn creates intermittent frictions.

Eventually the watch will stop all together.