I personally find it relevant. Crosses over to shilling imo. Further muddies an already not pretty picture.
What has your issue been out of interest?
Watchmakers work is very well regarded amongst vintage collectors, watchmaker gets over loaded with work, watches take longer to return....that's hardly an unpretty picture.
I use Simon a lot, and have done for almost 10 years. Anyone that knows Simon well will know how open he is, so Spacefruits update could have literally come from anyone.
I have no financial interest in the company, other than using Simon to service watches. I can give you the same update, if that makes it more palatable for some.
He has recently taken on staff to help with administration, this also saves him booking watches in, which is very time consuming.
He does a lot of trade work with modern watches, often quartz. He is now looking to add competent staff, that will do this work instead of him.
He has gone through a stinker of a divorce, which is hopefully now resolved.
Did anyone ever use Aldo for SM300 bezel restoration? I got used to a 12-18 month wait, with absolutely no contact until the work was done. I asked him how he kept his customers, he said 'If they don't like it, they will find someone else'.
My watches have also started taking longer to be serviced...so in January I thought I'd try and find a new local watchmaker.
A local guy was recommended to me, so I began using him.
I dropped in a WWW Timor in 95% condition, this came back with a scratched dial, the perfect aged lume was all gone, the hands were now filled with superglue, and painted Airfix orange. It also came back without the dust cap, which he denied was there. Overall that cost me about £250 to fix. He had a VERTEX which came back minus parts, and also a nice Smiths W10 that came back with added 'patina' to the dial.
He had a watchmakers bench set up in the corner of a fairly large department store. When it came to discussing the above, and finally bringing my sorry experience to an end, we almost got into a fight. We were shouting and screaming at each other, with little old ladies shuffling paste with their trolleys in hand. All in all it was quite a surreal experience, and one I don't wish to revisit.
Moral of the story for me... stick with what you know, even if it takes longer.
Giving a coherent update on someone’s status, why, and what the future holds for his business is contributory to many questions raised, and whether there is a financial interest by the reporter I believe in no way taints the information provided
Shilling? to talk about or describe someone or something in a favorable way because you are being paid to do it. I seriously doubt, given both Simon’s and William’s reputation, and the incredible backlog, that the motivation for the update was to drum up more business.
There's a difference between it taking long with bad communication but it's done right vs taking long with bad communication and it's done poorly. Been multiple reports of the latter with Simon recently. Every watchmaker will have some issues here and there but it's too many for my taste.
I personally know someone who sent his watch to a different watchmaker after having sent it back to Simon to correct one issue only to wait many more months and have it returned with another. The second watchmaker provided pictures of the process. There was visible dirt on movement. It returned from the second watchmaker in six weeks running as it should.
There is a vested interested. That takes the post from sharing information to PR imo.
I seriously doubt you expand taking on more staff simply to clear a backlog.
There's a difference between it taking long with bad communication but it's done right vs taking long with bad communication and it's done poorly. Been multiple reports of the latter with Simon recently. Every watchmaker will have some issues here and there but it's too many for my taste.
I personally know someone who sent his watch to a different watchmaker after having sent it back to Simon to correct one issue only to wait many more months and have it returned with another. The second watchmaker provided pictures of the process. There was visible dirt on movement. It returned from the second watchmaker in six weeks running as it should.
Please be very careful treading on someone’s professional reputation. The preponderance of evidence suggests your experience was an outlier. Plus, it was explained that he was having some significant personal issues, which was nice but unnecessary for him to share. How about a little compassion?
That's exactly what you do if you are self employed and struggling with workloads... employ more staff.
Is someone with a partner in the business still considered self employed?
Since we are talking watchmaker experiences, for those of us in the US, I thought I would add that I have had a very positive recent experience with Andy at Ultravintagewatches - very accommodating and attentive to specific details/requests.
And furthermore whether it is still OK as I tried to adjust it myself, lol.Just being honest,you know.
