Hello all,
Just to introduce myself to this group. I am just embarking on a new watchmaking hobby as I fancied a new challenge. I’ve always had an interest in watches since being a young lad and being promised a nice watch by my Dad if I learnt to tell the time. He probably regretted how quick I learnt and he rewarded me with a new Sicura World Time watch (can’t remember the exact model but it had a black outer dial to set cities from around the world and was purchased from Leslie Davis around 1972). I now regret selling the “broken” watch on an eBay auction about 4 years ago for just £13!
And so time has moved on... I have always been patient and technically-minded tinkering successfully in car mechanics and have been working in IT for the past 21 years, so hopefully have the aptitude to succeed in the new hobby. I recently purchased a nice chronograph Tissot watch for everyday use to replace my old Rotary and then started noticing all these fine old watches on ebay. In no time I had collected a few old Tissots; first quartz movements and then moving on to vintage manual winders (and driving my wife nuts!). So now I have a couple of Seastar Sevens (one to clean and oil when I have confidence), a ladies 1969 Tissot to spruce up, not repair, and an old working sporty-looking gents Oris is on the way.
I have begun collecting second hand watchmaking tools, mainly Bergeon after discovering the shocking quality of new Chinese tools. And so now after buying a book ‘Practical WatchRepairing’ De Carle and becoming a Member of this forum, I am looking forward to an interesting start to a new hobby.
Cheers,
Adam