Thanks for the kind words and vote of confidence.
That leaves only two matching that description --but no plans to sell unfortunately

 

Sounds like me. I haven't sold anything yet and have no plans to do so in the future.

This I'm beginning to realize as well. I guess never say never...

 

If that changes, remember who has Dibs.

 

Spoil sport! Sure is tough getting into the inner-sanctum of the Top-Shelf OF Private Club!! Oh sure, there's a lot of superfluous advice handed out freely to noobs, but the real Kung-Fu Master shiznit know-how is kept securely locked up by the veterans!!

 

I feel the same way. I had no idea this thread would generate as much feedback as it did. I certainly did not expect how many veteran watch collectors were of the mindset that vintage watches can be worn without a known service. Now I know...

Sure, this is completely understandable to me, and almost preferable as many have pointed out. I agree that I'd rather find a trusted watchmaker service a new watch (all of mine are intended to be 'keepers') rather than a flipper finding a fly-by-night hack so he can say it's 'serviced'.

 

So when someone says
"surprised to be selling this one, had it for several years, never been serviced"

it could interpreted as,
"I've taken a calculated risk for several years, knowingly doing unknown damage to a watch and would like to pass that on to someone else now..." ?

 

One of the watches is dibs free believe it or not!!
But of course I will for sure remember — with first dibs to friends who have aided the purchase.
Fair enough no?

 

Assuming a watch is well sealed (so outside moisture and dirt cannot enter), it is maintained in a fairly constant environment (no extreme heat or cold, no drastic swings in temp or RH), all parts are in good condition and properly oiled... what causes oil to break down and need replacing?

a) is it simply age? after 5 years the old starts to break down to such an extent that it needs to be replaced, regardless of whether the watch has run daily or never been run at all?

b) is it the running time of the watch? Does a freshly serviced and oiled watch have a certain # of cycles before the oil breaks down and needs to be replaced? In this case, if someone rarely or never winds a watch, does it theoretically extend the lifetime of the oil somewhat?

c) I'm guessing there's some combination of the above 2, where fresh oil in a watch worn daily is good for 5 years of running daily, at which point the combined impact of running and oil aging makes it such that the oil needs to be cleaned and freshly reapplied?

I know you'll likely say 'it depends' and something to the effect of 'YMMV', but aside from the normal disclaimers (which I know are very relevant), can you give your thoughts on the general factors and how much of a role each plays?

 

Sure, but I wasn't thinking of random ebay sellers or serial flippers when I started this thread. I was specifically thinking about knowledgeable collectors who value their watches and sell some under the conditions I outlined.

 

I'll take door number 1...It depends.

In most cases oils simply dry up. You can see where the liquid oil has just dried up to a crusty residue here:



And they can become contaminated, like this:



Certainly running the watch is more likely to cause wear products to get into the oils, so yes to a certain degree not running the watch can extent the service interval. But beyond a certain point, the oil will just dry up regardless.

Cheers, Al

 

I'm with you!
I started the thread, and only got around to replying to many of the interesting comments about a month later!

Goes for me as well.

Nice visual break from a lot of reading!

I agree.

 

Isn't the real challenge with a watch in knowing "if it is broken"? If manually winding and seeing hands move is all the evidence someone has that "it's not broke"... then I'm not so sure.

 

but... but... if you sell to me, I will "respect the watch" and have it promptly serviced!!!!

 

There was NO DOOR # 1!!!!!

This makes sense to me. (as my engineer wife often says, "cuz, math!").

Length of time a watch can be run with lowest risk of damage is determined as a function of:
- the age and and condition of the oil. New and clean oil would have a maximum age of 'x' if the watch was never wound. When that age is reached, it would best to service the watch even if the watch had never been wound. From what @ChrisN posted, maximum 'x' might be 12?

- the number of times the watch has been wound / run. The more a watch runs, the quicker the age and condition of oil would deteriorate. If worn daily, then the oil would have a minimum age of 'y'.

- If I assume a daily wearer achieves a minimum oil age of 'y' = 5, and a never worn watch achieves a maximum oil age of 'x' = 12, then I can assume a service is needed every 5 - 12 years, and I move along the scale depending on how frequently the watch sees use (and factoring in the extraneous variables such as rarity of parts and value of watch).

 

You should listen to your wife!

Unfortunately, my answer will again be "it depends" because not all watch movements are alike. I give the example of vintage v modern differences because that is the one that collectors can easily relate to. But there other considerations - some movements have weak spots, so individual differences can negate the "rule" you are trying to create for yourself here.

An example of a well known weak spot (amongst watchmakers anyway) are the setting wheels in the Rolex 3135 - if not regularly maintained they will cut through the posts that they ride on.

One many ETA based movements, the jewel for the third wheel on the dial side is very small, and the oil reservoir doesn't hold much oil - you will often find the third wheel worn on this pivot while the opposite pivot (and others in the movement) is fine.

So you can create general rules, but every rule has an exception as the saying goes.

Cheers, Al

 

@Archer if watch collecting ever stops being “a thing” you should bottle and sell some of your apparently unending patience. You seem to have an abundance of it!

 

Just to resurrect this thread, Mr. gostang9 had brought a couple of his "unserviced" purchases to me for service, so I thought I would share a few of the problems found, just to give some real life examples of what you can get with a purchase like this.

One was a vintage Tissot manual wind with a Cal. 27-1T:



Of course balance amplitudes were low, Delta over 6 positions was in excess of 100 seconds, so from a timekeeping standpoint not great. Looks like it's in good shape, but a closer look revealed all the oils had dried up long ago:









Some wear at the spot where the winding pinion rides:



The only real issue that required some intervention was wear to the barrel drum and cover holes that allowed too much side shake, and under load the barrel would tip in the movement, causing drag. Overall not a lot of extra work on this one. Final timing results were good - nearly equaling what Omega requires for their modern COSC watches.

The next was an Omega with a Cal. 265:



Again the movement looks to be in fine condition, but it's also completely dry:









Some wear found on this third wheel pivot:



Since the damage isn't big and this wheel is discontinued (and fairly expensive on the open market) I burnished it using the Jacot tool:



One of the bigger issues for timekeeping and general performance was the fact that the dial up and dial down balance amplitudes were 30 degrees different - these should be pretty much the same and trying to properly time the watch with this kind of problem is essentially chasing your tail. Looking at the cap jewels for the balance, you can see what running a watch when dry does to the jewels:





The balance staff acts like a drill bit spinning on the jewel, and despite the hardness of the corundum it will wear. But the end of the pivot itself can also wear, and get flattened, so despite the fact that I replaced both cap jewels, the amplitude problems persisted - here is the balance end that has the lower amplitude, and the end of the pivot is flat:



Now you may see other watchmakers replace the entire balance for this sort of thing, but if you have the skills that's really not necessary. I remove the balance:



And I use a hand held tool to try rounding over the pivot - here is the result:



You can see that there is rounding on the pivot end now, but a large flat surface still remains as this tool is somewhat limited in what it can do. To get a better photo of this I pulled out my second microscope, so this is the pivot under 100X magnification, plus some zoom on the camera I held to the eyepiece to take this photo:



You can more clearly see the slight radius and the fact there is a large flat still present. So I remove the balance again, and then remove the balance spring and the roller, so it's just the balance and staff left now:



And once again set-up the Jacot tool, this time with the lantern disk that is designed for this specific purpose:



In this cropped photo you can see that the very tip of the balance pivot is sticking through a hole in the tool and it's this portion that I will round using a burnishing tool - note that this pivot is 7/100ths of a mm in diameter:



Here is what the pivot looked like after I rounded it again, and you can see it's quite different:



This of course completely resolved the amplitude issues, and I was able to follow through and properly time the watch.

So the fact is sometimes you get lucky and there's not much extra work needed, but other times be prepared for a much bigger job.

Cheers, Al

 

Thank you Al. I really enjoy the information, especially the pictures.

 

You take fantastic photos Al. There is something very artful about the one of the balance hanging by its spring.

 

Thank you for the masterclass, sir.