I am close to purchasing a vintage Rolex. As I scroll through trying to find my treasure, I became intrigued on the differences between the manual wind and automatic.

If you have any guidance or suggestions, please share!

Is the manual wind less expensive to service?

Are there other pros and cons between the two?

 

One fact I remember coming across with the oyster precision (I believe) is that because of the screw down crown the manual winding is a bit more annoying than normal. I wore a Speedy Pro every day for 4 years, but adding a screw down crown would seem to become very annoying.

 

For me, that would definitely be a con.

 

Imagine unscrewing the crown to wind the watch every day ...

 

I have to unscrew the crown if my 2220.80 winds down, which it invariably does every weekend when I don't wear anything. Not the same as every day, but still.

 

yes, the constant need to unscrew an oyster crown to wind it can not be a good thing for the seals, vintage precisions and airkings are a best like a few hundreds to a $1k or so difference if you pay attention to the deals

 

I purchased an automatic about 3 hours ago.

 

Man, that is absolutely lovely! love the lume and hands! Congrats

 

Beautiful piece! Congrats!

 

Manual winders will almost certainly be more affordable to service, as there are fewer parts and therefore less to go wrong, and less time taken to assemble. The Oyster Precision currently strapped to my wrist has a 58 hour power reserve, good enough for needing winding only every two days. I typically rotate to a new watch after two days anyway, so it makes no difference to me if a watch is automatic or manual, they all need to be set and wound when I first strap them on.

 

Fall in love with the model & look. Automatic caliber is defiantly going to cost more to service, but a vintage manual caliber may also become pricey if parts aren't around. Try to buy something already serviced if possible.

 

“Most watchmakers charge the same (to service) a manual or automatic”?

Really?

 

Someone posted a short while ago (I think it was here) that they make a note of where the logo is oriented on the crown before they unscrew and wind the watch. They can then screw it down again starting at the same orientation, thus saving some wear on the threads or seals. This might be a bunch of baloney, but for someone who doesn't yet own such a watch, it made a tremendous amount of sense.

 

With all my screw down crowns, I just wind it towards me with a little downwards pressure until I hear and feel a slight click, which is the threads aligning. From there I wind it away from me until it's finger tight. So far, I've never had a crown tube fail.

 

I rotate my watches daily so that my auto’s with screw down crowns have to be manually wound anyway to get them going and reset the time/date- wouldn’t matter to me if it were manual or auto