Vintage watch care

Mechanical watches require a bit more care than a new watch, but by taking a few simple precautions your watch it will serve you faithfully for many years. With regular servicing a well made mechanical watch can be maintained almost indefinitely. 

You will need to take a bit of care with your watch as the mechanism is a delicate piece of engineering. In particular you should prevent your watch being exposed to water. It is especially important to protect the area around the winding crown, which is a weak point for water to penetrate the case and ultimately damage the movement. Under no circumstances should you allow your watch to become immersed in water! Should you have a watery mishap then please contact us immediately and we will advise the best course of action to protect your watch (begin by draining as much water as possible and sealing it in an air-tight bag).

You should avoid subjecting your watch to any sudden impacts or shock. If you’re knocking down a wall, digging up a road or perhaps even playing round of golf then please remove your watch until you’re finished. 

Winding your watch
Your watch will need daily winding in order to run and keep time*. The winding crown on the side of the case needs to be turned clockwise until you feel a definite stop from the mechanism. At this point the watch is fully wound, so you should stop (it isn’t possible to ‘overwind’ any mechanical watch, so please don’t be anxious about this - just keep winding until you feel the ‘stop’). 

* If your watch is an ‘automatic’ then you don’t need to wind it up - the oscillating weight will transform the movement of your wrist and arm into power to wind the mainspring. You can still wind up an automatic watch, but the mainspring is designed to ‘slip’ when it nears full winding, so you won’t ever feel a ‘stop’ from the movement