With the Election Day today, we thought we’d take a look back at the watches belonging to Abraham Lincoln – America’s 16th president. Lincoln was known to have owned a few pocket watches in his time, but there are two in particular that seem noteworthy: a gold pocket watch and a Waltham pocket watch. Before the start of the civil war, Lincoln purchased a nice gold pocket watch from George.. Read More

What’s in a name? For a Tourbillon, it is a fancy, French word for “whirlwind.”  The Tourbillon was invented by 18th-century watchmaker Abraham Louis Breguet, and his idea was to counter the effects of gravity on the escapement of a pocket watch. The escapement of a watch is basically what makes the hands of a mechanical watch move and keep time. The Tourbillon could be considered a kind of watch.. Read More

On the surface, a company that made a watch that would never need replacing would seem a little counter intuitive. After all, it is the goal of any business to keep selling their product to consumers – right? That brings us to to take a look at the Citizen Eco-Drive watch. Introduced in 1995, the Eco-Drive harnesses solar light to charge its movement. The solar cells are actually mounted underneath.. Read More

Replacing a mainspring in a watch is just about the most common repair that I make each week. I thought I would give you a bit more information as to how this is done. Here’s a Hamilton 992 with barrel cap off showing the break in the spring. The spring will normally break at the center. That is where most of the stress is placed as it is wound and.. Read More

Sometimes in life, the simplest things like adding a bit of color can go a long way to brightening your day or changing your mood. Maybe it’s wearing different colored clothes that make your outfit pop one day, or maybe it’s changing the accent colors in your preferred shoes. It could even be as simple as changing out the dome, ambient lighting in your car or home. In watches, one.. Read More

In the coming weeks, leaves across the Northeast will be going through their autumnal changes — turning from their regular green to oranges, reds and purples. People had come to expect a certain color scheme on watches. Dials were generally traditional colors, like black, white or silver. That is, until Rolex introduced the Stella Dial Day-Date in the 1970s. The dial had a colored, hard enamel and came in a.. Read More

This week, I want to share some of the best ideas and people that I work with who have helped make my business a success.  It hasn’t been all great ideas over the years. I have made some poor decisions, but in this post I would like to make a note of the things that help keep me in business. Protocol80 is my web design company.  This is one of.. Read More

Charley was a bit confused this weekend. She said that there would be NO work done in the watch shop in honor of Labrador Weekend. We had to explain to her that it was “Labor Day” weekend, but she refuses to do any of here daily chores here at the watch shop. The rest of the work staff decided to also honor Charley’s wishes and take a well-deserved weekend off… Read More

This week’s blog post is going to go into a bit of detail on how I do my business, what watches that I will work on  and why I don’t work on certain watches.   First, please keep in mind that I repair watches full time as a business — this is not a hobby.  I graduated from the Bulova School of Watchmaking in 1977 and have worked for the past.. Read More