An experience to share

[jmiicustomz]

Not that anyone has or would notice but I have taken some as of late away from the forum(like a month.) I have been spending my time and money on my first passion and the one that pays my bills. Now that I have completed my research on my new equipment and what to buy I will probably spend a touch more time. Nonetheless the reason for this post as I digress. In installing my new equipment in my shop I was not overly careful and was wearing a watch (don't panic it wasn't a true high end piece as I don't own any.) I ended up bumping my Marathon GSAR around a good bit and figured it might be wise to consider a regulation as it has always been dead on loosing about 2 seconds a week and now is more like 5. I know it's not a huge deal and still quite accurate but I work in numbers and it's loss has more than doubled. I decided a gamy better judgment to stop in the local shop if you can call it that. The guy advertises to be a watchmaker and states on his advertising that he can work on all brands and that he repairs, buys, sells and trades, luxury watches. I stopped in and said hi. I was greeted warmly and decided to ask a few questions as he told me to feel free to if I had any. I asked what all he worked on and who he had factory parts accounts with. He stated to me that he didn't see the need to set up parts accounts as all the watches made in the last 60 to 80 yrs are pretty much the same and that the swatch group owns them all anyway so it's the same stuff with different names. I stated that as I understood it Rolex was not owned by swatch and nor was seiko or Patek etc. He informed me I was in error and explained that luxury watch customers are a pain and always expect too much. That he could do without them and just stick to normal people. Now normally I might shrug it off and forget about it but this day I had been turning headspace gages on my new lathe and was dirty driving my old Nissan pickup and wearing Carharts and a ratty Polo. I figured I looked pretty normal for a guy in a small mountain town in western NC. I politely bid him a nice day and left as he muttered something under his breath. At this point I am struggling not to send the guy a thick packet of info from swatch, LVMH, Rolex, Patek, Seiko, etc. Stating who owns what and how, but I don't know that it would do any good. The point to the story is be careful and ask questions. If someone doesn't care enough to answer your questions or the answers don't feel right for ANY reason walk away. I have since done a bit more asking around and this guy openly services cheap knock offs as well as one friend was told that the knock offs are commonly more accurate and better watches, that true luxury watches are just a name with the same parts as any other.