Fair point, and I agree completely, but I don't think I'm doing that.
When looking for an independent I spoke to half a dozen or so over the phone and one in person. All of which had good "reviews", but none where referred to me by other watch folks. I tried, but I have not serviced a watch locally and found it really difficult to find recommendations or referrals on any of the watch forums for my city. Felt a bit lost TBH. So that's why I turned to a local independent dealer. When I asked him if he trusts and uses this watchmaker and he responds with: "Yes, I use him for all of my watches and have a couple with him now." it seemed like the best option considering the circumstances. The other option would have been to ship the watch out and go with someone out of town.
Unless you are a watchmaker yourself how would you ever know if the person working on your watch is a hack versus someone skilled? I'm certainly not qualified to distinguish between the two on my own. The same thing can be said for a car mechanic. There just has to be a level of assumed trust. I didn't look up "watchmaker" on Craigslist and pick the first one. I went with the recommendation from the independent dealer.
There's an element of uncertainty for any person sending their watch off, I suppose.
With regard to the Rolex AD that I'm in talks with, they have two in-house watchmakers that are certified under Rolex to work on both Rolex and Tudor...I feel very confident in them. I do not suspect they farm watches out...but again, I could be wrong, but I don't think so given they told me that everything is done in-house.
