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Sebastien

By Sebastien
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Sebastien New Member

Sebastien

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Hi everyone,

Excited to join this community! A bit about me:

I'm Swiss, but have lived in the US in the Boston area for the past 17 years since coming here for college. True to my Swiss heritage (my mother's family is actually originally from the Vallée de Joux and I spent a lot of time there as a kid), I've been in love with watches for as long as I can remember. As a young kid it was G-Shocks (which I've since learned is a common gateway drug), then I discovered watches were even cooler when they didn't have a battery. Whenever I had some extra money, I would buy the nicest watch(es) I could. Now that I have a wife and son, I no longer have sole decision-making authority.. but I still manage to add one to the collection every now and then.

That passion for watches has now turned into a passion for watchmaking. I've always wanted to build a movement, and one day discovered there was a company who would sell me a disassembled Seagull ST36 along with some tools and instructions to put it together. I labored through it (without a loupe!) and got it to work. Very proudly, it sat (occasionally wound up) on my home office shelf in its movement holder as a testament to my having conquered the art of horology.

And then I wondered if I could take it apart and put it back together again, so I did. And then I did it again. And again, and again. The tactile feel of the screw threads biting correctly, the satisfying click when the bridge falls correctly into place, the pride when the balance wheel kicks back to life again - it was all very therapeutic, my own moment of mindfulness for myself after a demanding workday or week.

My watchmaking skills and equipment have since grown. I now have a loupe... and rather more than that. (My wife thinks my tools look pretty and some have been co-opted as shelf decoration, so I'll account for the spend as being "dual-purpose.") I've taken several courses (including all of Mark's - and I'm eagerly awaiting Level 4!), read a lot, watched a lot of YouTube videos. I now buy watches to repair off eBay and have started to sell them off. I feel I've now graduated to the stage where I can be fairly confident that if I do this and that or get that part, I can get the watch running again decently well. But I'm humbled - and excited! - by how much more I have to learn.

So that's me. I'll close off by saying it brings me a lot of joy to see the steady stream of newcomers to this forum. Fifteen years ago, nobody wanted to nerd out with me about watches other than the local pre-owned watch dealer, who also had the bug and knew his stuff. (ADs... not so much.) Now many do, but the "Instagramification" of watches makes those conversations sometimes less than exciting. It's great to see others who also "tick" because of how a watch ticks. 

Looking forward to sharing our watchmaking journeys!

Sebastien

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Sebastien New Member

Sebastien

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Thanks for the warm welcome!

I think what my wife secretly really wants for Christmas is a lathe. I'm not sure it would fit on our shelves though, and it's rather an imposing centerpiece for the living room coffee table. Maybe I'll say we can use it to power kitchen appliances? Blenders, mixers, processors... Although on second thought, since I do most of the cooking and all of the baking in the family, that excuse seems rather selfish.

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