Which choice for optimum long-term watch "health"?

[timepup]

Hi, all,

I have a (really picky!) technical question for all you watch "gurus" out there who are familiar with the mechanics and long-term wear patterns of Rolex watches...

I have a two-year old GMT-Master II. I usually wear the watch four to five days each week.

The watch rarely ever uses up its winding reserve, and so basically has been running continuously for the past two years (as it is, of course, designed to do).

Until recently, when the watch was not worn I simply let it rest on my nightstand dial up.

A couple of weeks ago I purchased an Orbita Sparta watch winder, and since then I've been putting the watch on the winder when I think I'm not going to wear the watch for a couple of days.

With me so far?

Anyway, since purchasing the winder I've been reading a bunch of info about watches and winders, including the pros and cons of using or not using winders. The conventional wisdom seems to be that ordinarily a winder is not necessary for a watch that does not have multiple complications.



In reading through all of the info on the web there was one "pearl" of information that really caught my attention, and I'm honestly interested to know if it is true...

I read somewhere that some watchmakers feel that it is better for a watch if its mainspring is kept near its fully wound state... something about the mainspring being more likely to develop problems or be damaged if allowed to unwind frequently.

If this is true (and I'm sure this, like just about everything else about watches is a matter of controversy), then It seems that If a watch is never going to be allowed to run down completely then using a (well designed and correctly programmed) winder might actually be GOOD for it.

So, assuming that a watch is used regularly, not babied but not abused (and MIGHT have to go a bit longer than five years between service intervals...),
then which scenario is likely to cause the least amount of wear or problems over the long term:

1) The watch is frequently allowed to go 24 to 36 hours between wearings, and then is either allowed to wind itself or is manually wound before wearing. Thus the mainspring is wound and unwound regularly.

2) The watch is kept on a winder when not being worn. Thus the mainspring is always near fully wound.

Keep in mind that there is no difference between these two scenarios in the amount of time the watch is actually keeping time. The only variable is the constant vs. the intermittant state of wind of the mainspring.

Thanks for any advice, comments or wisdom!

Ken