Hi Watchfam

I'm based in Hong Kong and have been trying to locate a good watchmaker for my vintage pieces. Just thought I should share my experiences in case anyone else is trying to find a watchmaker. This is not a particularly happy story. If you don't want the full read then basic point is it is very difficult to find a good knowledgeable watchmaker here.

By way of background, I collect mainly UG, Wittnauer and (at least in HK) lesser known brands. No Rolex and no Patek.

Recently tried out a well known and supposedly "specialist" watchmaker which advertises itself as a vintage go-to shop. Left some of my UG, Wittnauer (Landeron 248 and Valjoux 7730), and a Mathey Tissot with them. All either chronos or with moonphase complications. So far the result has been less than ideal:

1. The Mathey Tissot was a Cal 321 movement. Not too weird right? It had stopped and I'd been told by the dealer that it needed to be demagnetised. The HK watchmaker looked at it and couldn't figure out how to demagnetise it. So I sent it back to the overseas dealer who promptly demagnetised it and has now relisted it for sale.

2. The UG pieces (two moonphase watches) have been in their workshop for 2 months now. No progress. The watchmaker was also unable to give me an update on when they might get to it. Not even a time estimate.

3. I had two Wittnauer 7004A chronos. One was missing pushers which they were unable to source. The other was running but because the case was heavily polished, and overall condition wasn't great I decided it could be a donor watch. The watchmaker took the donor watch apart completely before realising the parts were not interchangeable because of the different movements. I now have two dead watches instead of one. The first one was allegedly fixed but when I went to pick it up (along with the sad looking box of parts of the donor watch), I immediately spotted that the chrono wasn't running or resetting properly. They did not have to take apart my running one to donate if they could have figured out the movements were different and parts would not be compatible. Granted I was not charged but the end result is that I am one running watch down.

I still have some watches with them but I'm minded to take them back and send them overseas for servicing.

Overall quite an unpleasant experience.

If anyone would like to know the identity of the watchmaker I can discuss this in PM. I suspect from my searching on this forum that @Spacefruit will know!

Also if anyone has other suggestions for servicing in Asia, I am all ears!

Cheers gents,
R.