After years of seeing many quick fixes I decided to start showing some of the damage I see daily having been repaired by so called “watchmakers”.

I often get email asking if I can repair there watch following a visit to the cheapest repair person, or there claimed " fully serviced"  watch from

auctions that always helps the sale price!. In fact a high percentage of my work comes from the  quick fix cheap repairs and auction purchases.

One common mistake is that people think a jeweler is a watchmaker, do you hire a plumber to do your electrical work? Watch repair is becoming

a popular hobby and many people can get a watch ticking enough to sell at online auctions/shows, damage often occurs in doing so, this can be expensive

to reverse often permanent. I will however quickly add there are some home hobbyists who do wonderful work.

If you value your watch enough to have it repaired find a qualified watchmaker.

A good indication is finding a formally trained graduate of a full time watchmaking school there are not many working independently, and not to be confused

with a series of short cut 2-4 day hobby courses with a nice certificates, hard to compare to years sat in a formal watchmaker school adhering to the

highest standards daily.  even then you need to look at his workshops, equipment, the bench should be clear only the basic tools visible, scrubbed clean

dust free bench and workshop, look at the diversity of watches he regularly works on

If you are not sure remember mistakes can result in permanent / expensive damage.

I will keep adding more photos as I remember these are very recent sadly will not take long to find more

Omega Louis Brandt, limited edition 18k quality limited edition watch, destroyed in one service, to much damage to list, he could not open the case so

gouged it all up in attempting to do so, glues the case back together on completion, destroying the dial, the sub dials also all badly marked, scratched

every gold movement plate so badly no collector would buy it, removed the gold plating by improper cleaning methods, even scratched names/shapes

on the plates to aid rebuild, stripped threads, screw heads chewed up and so on, one unqualified person = watch irreparable, but I am sure cheap.

Rolex president   previous repairer seemed fit to scratch "BC" on every plate, smashed jewels.

Oiling of the barrel (and entire movement) requires specialized knowledge and lubricants for correct function and power reserve.

permanent damage has been caused to this watch and all we can do is repair and restore the past work as best as possible of course

much additional cost has now been incurred due to past cheap unskilled repairs.

This was a quick fix done local repair man, to a high end wristwatch the stems are very expensive so to save money he hacked a new stem out

this caused the gears not to engage and gearwheels severely damaged resulting in it now costing several times the cost of the stem to repair.

A balance staff change, wheel buckled, lower roller table twisted to position with enough force to flatted the side, possible pipe wrenched used!,

having no roller jewel a plug of wire, needless to say cheaper to replace balance complete if possible.

Barrel destroyed in attempt to fix mainspring  barrel hook

This is truly a classic don't think I need to add notes!

HIs friend had some dial cleaner that would make it shine like new!

The book said carefully make a tiny mark where the stud is to aid reassembly and then poise after staffing, the screw heads have been hacked

away, balance buckledroller glued on the watch did tick afterwards albeit running 15 minutes fast this was sold at a show as being serviced.    

After 100 years of running he decided that the fork needed to be corrected

Here is a watch that was left to run un serviced to long and ground away the pinion watches like any machine

need servicing.

This was a very interesting repair gluing the  arms together, looks like he also had a little difficulty with the hairspring.

This came off a once good quality pocket watch

II the seals are not changed at regular intervals they can turn to a rubber goo and fail, this gets into the movement it becomes

very hard to remove requiring much more time and cost.

This was serviced by the owners local  guy apart from breaking off a few screw heads gluing them back on,

they also found it necessary to jam a old screw driver blade in under the balance cock for no reason,

Built in tool kit? numerous other problems had to be resolved, 

A once high value high grade illinois pocket watch , many problems with this sadly,  the hack could not get the square peg in the sqaure hole

so started hacking away, not to mention the home made cleaning solution that has corroded most pivots and pinions on the watch plus

irrepairable balance damage after a a attempted staff change, it was running when sold on eBay sold as is "may need service!"  when you buy from Ebay

you only have a short while  to have them inspected and returned if in this state, several buyers have watches shipped direct to me, asking sellers

will they ship to a watchmaker  for immediate inspection should they win is often enough to filter out these hacks.