Those who buy/collect vintage watches -

Posts
603
Likes
1,124
I have learned how to service movements that aren’t too complicated. What I mean is simple mechanical wind and automatics with nothing more than a day date complication. Anything more complex and I give them to my watchmaker to play with.
 
Posts
664
Likes
2,280
I have learned how to service movements that aren’t too complicated. What I mean is simple mechanical wind and automatics with nothing more than a day date complication. Anything more complex and I give them to my watchmaker to play with.
I'm very curious about this, as it is something I've thought about trying to learn. May I ask (1) what was your investment in time to learn, and (2) in tools required?
 
Posts
1,538
Likes
3,346
If it’s not worth servicing it’s not worth buying. That’s not to say one should only buy high value watches, simply to say watches need to be looked after. I have cheap watches but I’ll still get them serviced because I believe in looking after things. If I like a watch that’s cheap I’ll buy it and have it serviced even it costs more to service than it’s actually worth.

I wouldn’t buy a pet and not take it to the vet for much the same reason.
 
Like 4
Posts
66
Likes
344
I had to learn to service watches and do repairs early on as I started with relatively inexpensive watches and a service would cost more than the watch and I also had a couple of bad experiences with some established watchmakers. So I perform repairs & a service on all the watches in my collection before putting them away. But I am a little OCD.
 
Like 3