Anyway, yesterday I was in Bristol and I noticed that my watch was losing time. It occurred to me that it maybe was about due for a battery so when I found myself near a national chain jewellers shop I popped in to ask if they'd change it for me.
Now it's quite an old watch, nearly 30 years old in fact but it was once quite a good one being a Tag. I'm very fond of it on the basis that it was about the only thing of value I managed to salvage from the financial ravages of my first marriage!
So, in the first shop I went into I was informed that they'd need to send it to Switzerland to have the battery changed at a cost of £45 and that it would take about 3 weeks. I politely turned their kind offer down and sought out an alternative retailer. That one said they could do it on site but that it would need to be left overnight and that they would only charge me £32.
Having decided that even at such a bargain rate I would try elsewhere, the third jewellers I tried said that they could of course do it while I waited and that they would need a mere £12 for the privilege but could I possibly come back in an hour or so as their battery changing engineer was currently on her lunch break?
Unsurprisingly perhaps, I got a bit bored with the project at that point and put it out of my mind until this morning.
Then, while in my home town this morning I happened by a small independent jewellers shop we've used for bits and pieces before and set them what now seemed in my mind to have turned into a significant challenge.
Could they possibly replace the battery for me in a reasonable timescale and without causing me to drift into overdraft? Well, lo and behold they could, "Would you like to wait? It'll only take a few minutes sir, but it's mildly tricky with your watch as we'll need to re-seal it"
Ok says I, and how much will that be?
"Altogether that'll be £5 sir"
Jolly good...
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There's a man on our market that does it. Cost me £4 for one in my Rotary yesterday.
Came to my rescue a couple of years ago when my daughter took one of her watches into a national chain. They bugg-ared it and had the cheek to try and charge for the privilege. My market man took a look, asked to keep it for an hour and fixed it for his regular £4 (I won't repeat what he said about the clowns who'd been there first).
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Market stalls can indeed be very good for certain things. Fish for example, and cheeses.
Edit - my parents once bought a dog from a market stall. That's something else you probably can't do now. Rightly or wrongly.
Last edited by: Runfer D'Hills on Thu 10 Dec 15 at 22:56
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I have a TAG watch but haven't worn it in years, the first battery lasted me nearly 5 years from new, and as you've found out to replace it can be quite costly, at the time I was using it while swimming in pools and the sea so I paid the full price (about £50) which meant all of the seals were replaced and it was pressure tested, they recommend that I had it tested every year if I was going to use it in saltwater, second battery only lasted 3 years and by then I had moved onto an automatic watch so battery changing wasn't an issue.
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Batteries 10 for a quid on eBay and I bought a tool for unscrewing the back of my watch for a couple of quid. So maybe £12 for 10 changes - not bad.
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Ages ago I got the Fox a small gold lapel pin of a beautifully modelled fox's head with diamond eyes. Saw it on a stall in the beller and that was that.
It's had an adventure, being lost, found and returned by an honest Asian shopkeeping family in Holland Park Avenue. Now it's in Chichester having its clip mended with gold solder or some such.
We'll have to trek down there and get it. Tsk.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Thu 10 Dec 15 at 23:42
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>>Ages ago I got the Fox a small gold lapel pin of a beautifully modelled fox's head with diamond eyes.
Sounds nice but, who is the Fox?
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"Sounds nice but, who is the Fox?"
Ssssssh ....... AC is a secret Leicester City supporter.
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>>Altogether that'll be £5
>>There's a man on our market stall that does it
>>Batteries 10 for a quid on eBay
Our batteries have been replaced by a local market trader for the last couple of decades. Gave it a try initially with our cheaper watches, before taking our more expensive ones. As far back as I can remember we've only ever been charged £2, regardless of watch.
Lets face it, it's only a 2 minute job.
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My ole mum got me a little Sat/Sunday job working for a market trader when I was about 11 or 12 down East St (known as East La) Walworth, sowf lunden. It was soooo cold (in winter) standing at a stall for ages, we used to stand on layers of folded up cardboard boxes.
Geezer sold most manstuff, leather laces, stick-on soles & heels, condoms and stuff which I can't recall.
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My Omega Seamaster's five year old battery gave up the ghost. £95.00 including pressure testing the waterproofing thereafter. Paid for using Tesco vouchers. Bargain.
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If you're ever this way and in need of another battery, I can give you a good steer...
;-)
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Don't scoff at the need to reseal. Even watches with quite simple waterproofing, like my weekend Casio, have a thin rubber O-ring around the edge of the back disc. I've managed to get that out once and reinstate it without damaging it, but it was mighty fiddly and now the battery has gone again and it'll be harder (in both senses) this time, especially since the ring is now seven years old.
More advanced watches have multiple seals and some need special tools to open and reassemble. A proper repairer will replace all the seals as well as the battery, which is not something I'd want to see happening to my £800 watch (if I had one) on a draughty market stall.
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I wear my plastic ( solar powered ) Casio if I'm going in the water.
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I've been yearning a new watch for a few weeks...:-)
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Me too, RP. I'm drawn to things that are technically unusual - like Tissot's T-Touch and Breitling's one-button Aerospace - but put off by the thought of expensive servicing every time the battery expires. So I probably won't bother.
I think solar power is the way forward for purely practical watches. Very impressed with the way the Citizen Perpetual A-T I travel with puts itself to sleep if I don't wear it for a few weeks, then whirrs into life as soon as it's exposed to light again. And, as RP points out, if there's nothing to replace, there's no need to open the case, possibly for as long as 20 years.
Seiko's Kinetic movement has some of the same advantages, but with moving parts that inevitably affect longevity and reliability. A colleague has an old one that he's clearly fond of, but it hasn't exactly been low-maintenance.
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I have a Kinetic Seiko for everyday use. Worn it for most of the last 7 years. It is now very scruffy - I know its on borrowed time (so to speak) as it's storage capacity it greatly reduced. One day I'll have to decide whether to get it fixed...I fell off the library steps in Blaenau Ffestiniog and broke the bracelet earlier this year. Local Jeweller fixed it for me for a tenner. I was looking at those Breitlings yesterday in Brum....very tasty.
Last edited by: R.P. on Fri 11 Dec 15 at 11:32
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Had to stifle a grin when a friend told me he'd sold his Breitling and his Panamera and replaced them respectively with an Omega and a Cayenne because, in his words, the former combination "just felt a bit ostentatious y'know'...
Yeah, sure, of course, see what you mean, sheesh...
;-)
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I've always suspected that a TAG-Heuer (quartz, with the rotating divery bit), a Montblanc pen (especially one without a nib) and a BMW 3 saloon were the combination that marked a man as empty inside, at least when viewed across the table at a business meeting. To me they were the archetypal products bought as visible status symbols rather than for their own merits.
But now I've got a 3 (coupé) and - would you believe - a pair of TAG-Heuer glasses, so what's happening to me? Is the Montblanc stapler next?
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Well, I've used the same watch, and the same old Parker jotter for nigh on 30 years. Did once have a 3 series saloon too. Never quite did the hair gel or the big tie knot thing though so I claim immunity from the stereotype.
;-)
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>>on a draughty market stall.
Hasn't harmed my 30 year old Omega Seamaster thus far.
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I used to use a local watch repairer who never charged more than a fiver. He has retired and I have not had to have a battery change on my Tag Heuer Professional which I am wearing today ,my Omega Constellation or Seiko Perpetual Calendar since.
I love watches so also have a Seiko Arctura kinetic a Longines a Mappin and Webb and a gold Waltham beautifully engraved pocket watch which I have picked up at auction or antique fairs and am always looking for others.......its a vice...
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>> my weekend Casio, have a thin rubber O-ring around the edge of the back disc. I've
>> managed to get that out once and reinstate it without damaging it, but it was
>> mighty fiddly and now the battery has gone again and it'll be harder (in both
>> senses) this time, especially since the ring is now seven years old.
I find a very thin smear of silicone grease on the o ring not only helps preserve the rubber, but also makes disassembly next time more easier.
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Thanks, VF, I may give that a go.
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Forgot to mention, it also helps to seal things too.
Used to use it all the time on vacuum systems to let rubber o rings slide into place to create a better seal and to keep the rubber supple.
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Weirdly I caught one of my Citizen Solars doing the sleeping thing this morning. It had been in the bathroom for a couple of weeks whilst the Seiko was deployed on operations in Birmingham...when I turned the bathroom light it clearly woke up...all three hands whizzed around to the correct time. Left it snoozing with its partner on the window sill now to catch some rays...maybe.
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My G-Shock is solar powered and also sets itself to the correct time by receiving a signal from space pixies or something.
However, it can never seem to make contact with the foreign pixies when it's abroad and I still have reset it manually to local time, or just scroll through its menu to display the time for that region which is ok too. But on its return to the UK it automatically talks to the British pixies again and resets to local time. Not sure why it won't do that when out of the country.
There's probably a way of doing it of course but my boredom threshold is way too low to find out.
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>> However, it can never seem to make contact with the foreign pixies when it's abroad
>> and I still have reset it manually to local time, or just scroll through its
>> menu to display the time for that region which is ok too. But on its
>> return to the UK it automatically talks to the British pixies again and resets to
>> local time. Not sure why it won't do that when out of the country.
Perhaps, because like many of us, it can only speak/understand English?
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>> My G-Shock is solar powered
Never understood the concept of a solar powered watch. I generally wear long sleeves so it would never charge up, and the only time I take my watch off is at night, and again it would never charge up.
My current Casio has a 10 yr battery. Easy enough to change if it does go the distance before the watch itself disintegrates.
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Hard cell - bathtub tom
