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Comment by _fat_santa | Hacker News Reader

There's something magical about mechanical watches. Maybe it's just knowing that you have this perpetually winding machine on your hand (in the case of "automatic" mechanical watches).

Also knowing that the thing will last forever, take care of it and it will probably outlive you. Can't say that about an Apple Watch.

If you want a good mechanical watch that won't break the bank I suggest picking up a Seiko SKX (though prices have been going up), a Vostok Amphibia (might be hard with the ukraine conflict) or a Timex Marlin.

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> I suggest picking up a Seiko SKX

Sadly this advice is a little bit out of date, as the SKX has been out of production now for a few years and the price on uses examples has risen above what one is worth (except to collectors).

The newer advice is to grab a Seiko 5*. There's a million different choices, and all the current ones come with the 4R35 or 4R36 movement, which are better than the 7S26 which was in the SKX divers.

* https://www.seikowatches.com/us-en/products/5sports/lineup

A mechanical watch needs regular service which is usually just cleaning, lubricating, replacing seals and springs. Eventually it will need replacement parts and that is probably the end of life for the watch.

There are a some brands that will service every watch they've ever made, fabricating new parts as needed. Few of us can afford one of those.

A solar quartz fits this more. Those don't even require movement or correcting as often as with mechanical watches. Just light

The solar Casio I bought as a teenager stopped holding a usable charge after a few winters. Maybe it was just bad luck. I'll see if the new Citizen Eco-Drive in my collection lives up to the 40 years claim I saw elsewhere. :)

Solar Casios(I own two) have a replaceable rechargable battery, it costs very little and isn't more difficult to replace than any other watch battery.

It usually is this one in almost all their models:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0080GQBTU/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_XX5J...

The first Eco-Drives came out in the mid 90s. If you look around you'll find quite a few reports from people who bought the very first ones, and which are still ticking away virtually maintenance-free for 25+ years and counting. My own, a dive watch with around 10 years, which has actually been used for its stated purpose, is also still problem-free and with zero maintenance so far.

The only thing you need to be mindful of with Eco-Drives is that you can't let it lose all charge. It can keep functioning in complete darkness for around 6 months, according to the specs, but if you do this enough times the battery will lose the ability to hold charge and will need to be replaced, and there are plenty of reports to this effect. If you're not planning on wearing it, just leave it somewhere that it can get natural light, instead of a drawer, and you should be good.

While mechanical watches are undoubtedly cool and elegant, they're not perfect timekeepers, and when they do need maintenance it's not something trivial which you can perform yourself. For my day-to-day watch I'll take an accurate quartz movement with virtually zero maintenance any day. In other words an Eco-Drive, or something similar.

My experience with a very high-end solar Casio was akin to yours, with the battery needing replacing after about five years. Perhaps gambiting is correct about the common nature of the battery, but multiple watch repair shops (both in a department store, and the "old man in a tiny room in an office building" type) refused to deal with it. I always had to mail it to an authorized Casio repair outlet.

I do not know whether this also applies to Eco-Drive.

The parts last quite some time if properly maintained. If you're worried about replacement parts availability, stick with the most popular movements such as the ETA2824/SW200 series or Seiko's NH35 series.

A lot of watch fans are happy when they see a watch brand use an in-house movement. I’m exactly the opposite for the reason you say - the popular movements are going to be easily and inexpensively serviced for much longer.

That said, a lot of in-house movements are little more than tweaks and high end finishing applied to existing commodity movements.

Exactly. The flip side of the recent proliferation of "barely in-house" movements is that there's actually even less diversity of movements in the mid-range watch market than the brands would have you believe. So in the long term, it's going to be fairly easy to get any of them serviced. Just replace some springs and gears with compatible parts from a 2824/2892/7750/whatever and stick the brand's pretty rotor back on.

I'm with you on this. I see a ton of custom watches that end up using a Seiko automatic movement or an ETA. A bit like Lotus using Toyota Camry engines.

Not just custom - Seiko used to (still does maybe) provide manufacturers with bare movements, even with the company name on it. That means you'll find "no name" watches from the 60s onward with Seiko movements. That makes servicing, repairing and replacing them much easier and cheaper. Same with ETA.

Ever since I picked the hobby of fixing old mechanical watch, in house movement is my number 1 criteria for not buying because of the availability of parts.

For example, the size and fit of Seiko "calibers" are the same going back further than NH35, which means far older watches can accept NH35 as replacements. Even sub-assemblies and parts of NH35 fit straight onto 7s26s from the 90s.

NH35 can be serviced, but makes more sense an assembled replacement part. The same argument can probably made for the entire watch. The appeal of using one watch for 30 years is more in romantic fantasy than practicality.

Don't forget Citizen's Miyota 9000 series!

Parts rarely fail on watches from the 50's on, especially the better made watches that are sealed. Even those that arn't sealed very well, the parts seem to last.

If a part does fail, it's usually the old blue steel mainsprings.

They can be replaced with modern White-Alloy springs. (That is just a brand name.)

Watches are my thing. I don't know why I like them so much, but do.

Servicing does take awhile to learn though. That whole 10,000 hrs probally. Servicing a watch does not take that long to learn. I'm talking about making parts with a Jeweler's lathe. And getting to the point where you know those parts well enough to visualize exactly what's wrong with a timepiece by looking at it.

If you did learn to clean/oil your mechanical watch, it's something that will be passed down to loved ones.

Oh yea, Service a mechanical watch when it stops keeping good time. That is unless you take it in the water.

I know a watchmaker who told his father he needed to Service his gifted wristwatch. His father got it 30 years ago as a present, and just wore it daily. The watchmaker was expecting dried up oil, but to his astonishment, the oil was still there. It was hermetically sealed. Oils do breakdown, but he couldn't find any damage to parts using a 40x stereoscope.

They last longer if you wear them, say, several times a month - i.e. if you have a rotation with several quartz watches and several mechanical ones. They definitely will last decades that way.

As others have noted, if you own a well-known brand like a Seiko you can easily purchase an entirely new movement for $50-$75 and this should take a watchmaker no more than one hour of labor or you can DIY. (Many non-Seiko brands use NH35/36 movements, which are made by Seiko)

Will Seiko provide parts for older watches? I just got stuck with a bricked Swiss Army quartz watch because no one can get parts for it (it's 20 years old). I'm very tempted by some of the more affordable Seiko mechanical/automatic models, but I'd like the watch to last at least a decade or so.

Sadly, I'm not aware of any specific "we will continue to manufacture parts for X years" guarantees from Seiko.

Still, though - keep in mind that entire Seiko movement can be bought for like $50-75. And many of their most common movements are interchangeable. For example, an older 7S26 can be replaced with a new NH36 that sells for about $50. https://chronometercheck.com/seiko-7s26-movement/

It's not entirely unfeasible to imagine buying a spare movement or three if you were, say, planning on doing sort of a heirloom thing and wanted to ensure a supply of parts N decades into the future.

To that point - yes, but it's less expensive than many people think. I got a vintage 1970 Omega Seamaster in very good condition some time ago, paid less than £1000 for it. It kept very good time, no issues with it, but I decided that since it turned 50 recently I'm going to treat it to a full Omega service with an authorized workshop, paid £495 - that included replacement original parts from Omega, which of course they still stock and make for this watch, because well - it's Omega.

I asked them how this works, and they said anything younger than 80 years Omega just sends them parts without any issue, anything older they have to send back to Switzerland for service, and yes, then Omega might have to manufacture the parts required on the spot - and yes, that then turns really expensive.

Do be careful having your vintage watches serviced.

I was lucky enough to inherit my grandfather's pre-COMEX 5513 in very good condition - one or two tiny specks on the dial and a light scratch on the case. The appraiser gave me the warning that I should never send it to a Rolex repair center for servicing under any circumstance. If I did, I'd likely end up having the original acrylic bubble being replaced with crystal, the case polished high heaven, new tritium applied, and it'd probably be worth $15k less.

Collectors want a watch that shows signs of life; they value a nice patina. Many watch manufacturers service things to "modern spec" and try to make a watch look new. For a watch that old, I'd strongly suggest you find an independent watchmaker or two and get them to give you an estimate before you do anything.

>>Collectors want a watch that shows signs of life; they value a nice patina.

Yeah, but I don't. I don't have this watch as an investment - hopefully I'll use it for another 50 years and then someone else can use it again for 50 more years. In fact in addition to the service I paid £300 to have the dial replaced with a brand "new"(old stock) identical dial, because mine was showing very minor signs of corrosion. If a collector somewhere has an issue with that.....tough? Also I have no idea how anyone could ever even tell the dial was replaced, the new one is original Omega, just......flawless.

>> If I did, I'd likely end up having the original acrylic bubble being replaced with crystal, the case polished high heaven, new tritium applied, and it'd probably be worth $15k less.

That sounds perfect, if it were my watch I'd absolutely do that. Who cares how much it's worth at the end? If it's your grandfather's watch, then you probably won't ever sell it, will you?

Either way, I understand this is a personal choice.

>>for a watch that old, I'd strongly suggest you find an independent watchmaker or two and get them to give you an estimate before you do anything.

I did, both of them went "oh it's an omega, it's going to be about £400 for a full service mate" - so servicing it with Omega wasn't that much more expensive and it was a much better shout in my book, I know that whatever parts they replaced are original and brand new.

edit: just to add to the above - sorry, I realized I came across as very defensive. Yes of course your advice applies 100% if someone cares about maintaining the value of a vintage watch. Identical advice applies to maintaining vintage cars as well. But if you buy a vintage watch like me, to use it as....a watch....then just keep that in mind too.

No worries – and ultimately, you are absolutely right, it's all down to what you want out of it.

The two things I wanted to flag were

1) watches can have surprising value fluctuations, so they're worth being appraised professionally: just because you have "a model X from company Y dating back to Z" doesn't mean you'll get the valuation right if you try. If Papa were a desk diver at COMEX instead of Arthur Andersen I'd have likely ended up with a 5514 instead, and my six figure watch would be in a safe somewhere, not on my wrist.

2) many companies, when repairing, will not hesitate to add modern components. Rolex is apparently notorious for this, but others do it as well. In the opinion of Rolex, a watch is a watch: your GMT-Master with a Bakelite bezel is no different from a GMT-Master from 2022, it's just out of spec and needs a refresh.

The combination of this has lead to horror stories where people send their watch in for what they expect to be a fairly routine service (cleaning, oiling, etc.) and end up with an entirely different watch.

My grandma has a mechanical watch she only wears on sundays - to the church. Whenever I was visiting her she asks me to wind it up for her before the mass. She uses this same watch for over 30 years with minimal maintenance, and it's not an expansive brand, just a good noname watch.

I have seiko automatic which kept great time when I first bought it, but not long after, it slipped off my wrist and fell on the tile floor. Since then it has been losing time but no so much as to be a huge problem. Would service easily fix this or is it just something to live with?

Seiko makes a huge range of watches so: it depends. If it's a cheaper one, just buy a new one. If it's a mid-range one, you can just buy a new movement for under $100 and toss it in with a few tools. Lots of tutorials on YouTube.

Should be a simple fix. It might just need regulation on the balance wheel (super quick, no need to disassemble the whole movement), or one of the pinions might be bent (just replace that wheel).

Take it to a watchmaker, a fix like this would be pretty straightforward.

It may or may not be easy to fix properly, but if it's an inexpensive Seiko it may not be worth doing that, just replacing the movement when it wears out completely.

That said, simply adjusting the tick rate to regulate timekeeping is very easy and if you've got steady hands and a sharp eye then you can do it yourself with a wooden toothpick, assuming you've got a tool to remove the watch back. Any shop (offering repair facilities) could do it as well in a matter of minutes.

I keep considering a mechanical watch, but I think I'd find the accuracy a bit tedious - having to continually adjust it every week so that I didn't arrive late to appointments.

I like a watch that gets out of the way - it just works. I've got a Citizen watch a little like this: https://www.citizenwatch.co.uk/stiletto-ar1130-81a.html

It's a quartz watch, powered by solar power through the face. It has 'just worked' for as long as I've had it. From an accuracy point of view, it loses negligible amounts over the several month interval between me being forced to adjust it anyway (daylight savings, international travel).

It depends on the movement in the watch. Any COSC chronometer movement will hold +4/-6s per day which worst case is under a minute lost per week. Typically the error is much smaller.

You can always get a spring drive from grand seiko - it's mechanical (with an "brake" driven by an integrated circuit, but still no battery) but basically only gets a few seconds off per year. Lowest price point for those is like $5k though.

I do love Seiko watches. That's probably a little steep for me but I'll have a look!

you can expect a quality automatic movement (imo seiko is lowest end of quality) to be off on the order of single digit minutes per month

This is of course a matter of personal taste, but:

I usually set my watch a few minutes fast on purpose. I just use it to get an approximation of the time: "oh, it's nearly 5"

When I need the exact time I look at my phone, and naturally that's where my calendar reminders and such live as well. So I'm not missing any appointments if my watch is off, and if I did rely on my watch I'd be a few minutes early.

The two work well in tandem for me.

Of course, I also know lots of watch owners who prioritize accuracy from their wristwatches. If I was one of those people, I really couldn't imagine wanting to deal with a mechanical watch. They are wonderful, wonderful little machines and it's a miracle they're as accurate as they are... but, they are not as accurate as a $10 digital watch.

I've been using the same mechanical watch, more or less every day, for a little over 12yrs now. Miyota movement, stainless body, Sapphire window, about $300. In years of machine shop work the movement survived fine, and has one scratch on window from some tungsten carbide.

Has kept brilliant time, maybe a minute a month, and taught me that my watch being accurate to the second was something that, for me, just didn't matter. I started working around pulsed high voltage last year (100kV+) and now it loses a couple minutes a week.

> one scratch on window from some tungsten carbide.

Checks out. Tungsten Carbide and Corundum (sapphire watch crystals, the hardest watch crystal in use) have the same Mohs hardness of 9 and will scratch each other.

And I'd guess that a $300 watch probably doesn't use Corundum but rather mineral glass.

County comm mid pilot watch, it's advertised as Sapphire. Comparing with colleagues at the time, it was a far sight tougher than their watches.

Lot of microbrands offer sapphire glass and very decent Miyota or Seiko automatic movements for $300-$500. Prices have crept up the last few years.

Orient has a few automatic models (Kamasu, etc) that can be had for under $300 with sapphire.

> I started working around pulsed high voltage last year (100kV+) and now it loses a couple minutes a week.

Are these two things somehow related to one another?

Watch movements are generally sensitive to magnetic fields, and can become magnetized and lose accuracy. Some watch models explicitly advertise their level of resistance to magnetism, for instance the Rolex Milgauss, which is designed to withstand 1,000 ("mille") gauss.

Omega has watches that are METAS certified, so they resist up to 15000 gauss. They use silicon balance and silicon escapement.

Yes indeed, though not necessarily the cause in this case. While it could be coincidence, magnetization of components can result in reduced accuracy. Some companies have started to release watches with silicon springs, though very expensive.

> I started working around pulsed high voltage last year (100kV+) and now it loses a couple minutes a week.

There are antimagnetic watches. Or you can use a cheap watch demagnetizer.

A demagnetizer is on the shopping list, but at the same time, a quick adjustment every now and then is easy enough. I also love my watch, so a switch to antimagnetic isn't high on my priorities.

I’ve got a cheap Seiko 5, the SNK809. Bought for $50 new in 2013, wore it for a few years then it moved with me in drawers for the past 5. I pulled it out last week, wound it up and it works perfectly, gaining just 4 seconds a day.

An SKX isn't gonna outlive you and once it fails they'll just replace the entire movement anyway.

Mechanical watches are still indeed cool though. :)

As an owner of an SKX who doesn’t know much about watch longevity, how long can I expect it to last? Are there other automatics that will outlast a person’s life?

It still blows my mind that you can take the SKX scuba diving, especially when you factor in the price.

This may sound cynical but as I get older and see the world becoming more and more digital and connected, I find myself appreciating analog, mechanical things like watches and old cars more and more.

If you are going to take your SKX diving, you probably want to have a watchmaker pressure test it once in a while and make repairs as needed. The seals dry out and water will get in.

I think maintenance requirements are overstated. I wore a relatively cheap (~£120) mechanical watch continuously for about 8 years, and never had a single problem with it. I only stopped wearing it about 2 years ago when I finally bought a smartwatch. It still works fine, I just don't wear it except on special occasions.

If your watch is a sizable investment then maybe you care about maintenance more, but otherwise I wouldn't worry that it's going to stop working in short order.

Mechanical watches can last a lifetime (or more) if properly maintained and periodically serviced, just like old cars.

People all over the world pass down their Rolexes and Omegas, still ticking, to their children and even grandchildren. Patek Philippe is well known for their slogan, "You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation," showing confidence in the longevity of their watches.

Of course those are very expensive brands, but I think part of what makes expensive watches last longer is that their owners take good care of them. Few people bother to get their SKX checked up on a regular schedule, on the other hand, because they're so cheap and easily replaceable by first-world standards.

They also cost a ton to service. It's nice if the sentiment of carrying something through the years appeals to you, but the thing that keeps me away from mechanical watches is the service costs compared to the odd battery replacement on a quartz.

I have a 7s26A movement out of a late 90s SKX which was unserviceable, and another 7s26C became unusable after 4-5 months of use.

I also have a replacement 7s26C which worked flawlessly [-5,+5] s/d out of the box and a year so far, and another watch with NH35 which still holds [-5,+5] s/d after seven years of daily use.

There are stories of SKX:s which hold good time after 20 years.

There are much cheaper watches than SKX (at their current prices) that will withstand the depth, see "Beyond on the press" pressure chamber tests, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti-GdfGbj4Y

My father's Seiko from the late 70s still keeps time at around 30 seconds per day. It has never been serviced so I am sure it is bone dry and really should not be run. I regularly wear a 2015 Seiko that used to be 8 seconds per day fast but has fallen to 5 seconds per day slow so it is probably time to service it. My two newest watches are from 2017 and 2021 and they are consistent since break in. So given my limited number of data points, I would say 5-7 years between service but if you just want to wear it until it dies, 10+ years is probably reasonable.

On a side note, I have read about 40 year old Seikos being worn daily without service but that sure feels outside of the norm.

> Are there other automatics that will outlast a person’s life?

Very unlikely. You do hear the occasional story of a mechanical watch running fine for several decades without requiring any servicing, but there's a lot of survivorship bias at play there. It's extremely unlikely to go ~8 decades without needing servicing. Keep in mind there are lubricants at various places in the movement that are essential to proper operation that evaporate/denature over time.

I have an automatic mechanical watch - a Seiko 5. It loses about 5 minutes a day. It might only need an adjustment to calibrate it, but that would require a watchmaker. I think the last one in town just went out of business, and even if he hadn't, the cost of his labor would be greater than the cost of the watch.

> It loses about 5 minutes a day

This suggests it's completely out of spec, and maybe beyond saving. However, regulating functioning Seiko movements is certainly within reach for enthusiasts using a timegrapher device, or software with a microphone. Persistently adjusting over a few days, it should be able to get within -10,+10 seconds per day.

The timegrapher will also reveal the condition of the movement and whether further work is worthwhile. Servicing these movements is likely more expensive than replacing them.

It's not hard to make the adjustment, but you need a timegrapher to measure the results in a reasonable time.

I've adjusted a couple of my watches over the course of a week or two by making small adjustments, noting the time, wearing it for a day, and then noting how much the time had changed versus a "known good" time. It's a pain but doable.

There are mobile apps that use the phone's microphone to measure the watch's "ticks" and graph them for you. They aren't anywhere near as accurate as a "real" timegrapher but they'll get you close enough.

At one point I had about a dozen mechanical watches. These days I have three, and only one that I wear almost exclusively. It's a Maratac Mid-Pilot, which uses a Miyota 8245 movement. I've used the "adjust and check later" method to adjust it, and it loses about 10s per week - well within the acceptable range.

The other two that I've kept are a Seagull 1963, which I wear as a "dress watch", and a Vostok Retro 1934, which I sometimes wear when I want a change of pace. It has a white face and I have a variety of brightly-colored straps for it.

One day I'll step up and buy a Hamilton, but I'm still savoring the serotonin from looking at them and anticipating :).

> but you need a timegrapher to measure the results in a reasonable time.

This is just an app now. All a timegrapher is is a microphone and software, and, well, your phone has all that. This is the app I use; I highly recommend it: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.watchaccur...

Tickoprint is another app for android that works great

Why wouldn't they be accurate? You have a fairly precise 44kHz sampling rate, the only issue might be identifying the ticks.

> Maybe it's just knowing that you have this perpetually winding machine on your hand

It's a mechanical device which stores energy in a spring barrel, and consumes it through a set of gears to produce constant velocity motion.

> Also knowing that the thing will last forever, take care of it and it will probably outlive you. Can't say that about an Apple Watch.

I don’t know how many mechanical watches really will last a lifetime, but they will easily last longer than a so-called ‘smart’ watch.

Six years ago I seriously considered purchasing a ‘smart’ watch. Eventually I realised that they were just another money sink and attention leash, and put the money into a couple of automatic watches instead. I still have them, and wear them regularly. Had I bought an Apple or Android watch, I would have replaced it multiple times by now.

That’s the plus side. The minus side is that I don’t wear one of those two every single day because … I gotten bitten by the watch bug, and now I have a pile of other watches, and I wear those too! I still think that I am ahead of the game, though.

BTW, I write ‘smart’ watch because I don’t think they are really that smart; if anything, they should be called unwise watches, because they are an unwise expenditure of resources, money and attention. Also they just don’t look good. I predict that in thirty years we’ll look back on them much as we do digital watches: as a fad.

    The minus side is that I don’t wear one of those two 
    every single day because … I gotten bitten by the watch 
    bug, and now I have a pile of other watches, and I wear 
    those too!

This was a big part of the fun for me. Different watches for different days. It's ridiculous, even embarrassing to admit this but -- I feel like the richest, luckiest man in the world when I look at a drawer full of watches from which I can choose each day. As a child I would never have dreamed of it.

In reality they are all very modest watches, most under $100. The entire collection is not worth more than a nice laptop. But whatever.

As a bonus mechanical watches, unless I'm mistaken, will last longer if not running 24/7/365.

Agree with you so much. It still feels absolutely magical wearing one. The SKX007 was my first automatic watch and I wore it daily for 10 years. Incredible thing.

I actually have an SKX013 which I like wayyy more than the 007. Basically the same watch but that 39MM size is perfect.

I wear a 39mm watch as my daily now. I agree - fantastic size!

Still love my SKX007J though I don't wear it as much once I got in the habit of step counting, maybe I should start wearing two watches...

As mentioned the SKX is no longer produced, and the replacements for it are inferior as the 5 series has increased in price beyond inflation and are not true dive watches anymore. Orient is better if you want a dive watch in the spirit of the Seiko SKX.

The best current advice for beginners is probably on the Just One More Watch youtube channel, most watches are in the price bracket that the SKX occupied, and you will learn about micro-brands that exceed Seiko in quality, beat them on price, and under the hood have Seiko movements that are easily replaced & serviced for decades to come.

My Helm Komodo reccomended by Jodi of JOMW gets as much wear as my Rolex Submariner and at a fraction of the price. It isn't the same price or quality, but I enjoy it just as much.

Not to defend Apple watch or other smart watches, but they have been my dream since my childhood watching James Bond movies. So I love both mechanical watches for their engineering and smart watches for what they bring to the table. We dont have to diss one to make the other feel better.

I have a couple of Seiko automatic watches, but I recently picked up an SNK809 as a new daily driver: https://www.benswatchclub.com/blog/seiko-5-military-review. For £120/$130, it's cheap enough to wear every day and it looks great. The amount of mechanical complexity and engineering that goes into it for that price is mind blowing.

I feel the same way, I write software for a living and I'm sure an outsider browsing through the thousands of lines of code in my codebases everyday would be confused, but I get that same feeling when looking at a mechanical watch. To think that people were building the first mechanical timepieces 500 years ago, just a hundred or so years after the printing press is incredible to me. How did they even create parts that tiny so accurately?

This rings especially true when you live and work in an ephemeral digital environment. I find mechanical devices of all kinds grounding. No batteries, no upgrades, no security vulnerabilities, no dependency hell.

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