When is restoration actually vandalism?

[DonkeyApple]

I watched a video the other day that showed a very skillful restoration of a well battered by life and time AP Offshore.



I actually found myself thinking that the true value of this particular watch had just been eradicated, destroyed by removing decades of scars and wear from a phenomenal watch that was actually one of the rarest offshores ever as its owner had actually worn it for work and life not just for poncing about town as per almost all premium watches.

It reminded me of the battle I have with service centres when I send them one of my watches to get them to agree in writing that they will not touch the exterior of the watch. It's something I'm very particular about. Each bit of damage tells me a story, reminds me of things that I've done. Without those marks the watch ceases to have any value to me.

This may be a bizarre or unusual view but I would have paid a premium for an offshore that had lived a life rather than been a prisoner of poncery for three decades.

[JoshSm]

DonkeyApple said:

I actually found myself thinking that the true value of this particular watch had just been eradicated

That's how I'd see it - it's gone from having patina to just being very heavily refinished.

It's one thing to repair minor damage on an otherwise clean one but that specific one with all that history really wasn't improved by all that work. All it should have ever had was functional repair, but the cosmetics left well alone.

Surely the level of refinishing will always be obvious, it'll never be like new, and better to have kept it as an honest well used one than just another reworked one?

[Panamax]

Can't help wondering why those hex-head bezel bolts have a completely redundant screwdriver slot. Seems pointless to make something look like a screw when it's not a screw. The art of bling, I suppose.

[JoshSm]

Panamax said:

Can't help wondering why those hex-head bezel bolts have a completely redundant screwdriver slot. Seems pointless to make something look like a screw when it's not a screw. The art of bling, I suppose.

I always assumed it was to make it look like a trick impossible screw, when really it's just a very basic nut & bolt.

[22s]

I think it's really cool to restore it to its original new glory after such a long (and painful by looks of it! ) life. As someone alluded to in the YT comments, the restorer didn't just fit a load of new parts to "restore" it into a frankenwatch. Instead, they took great care and attention to disassemble the watch into its original parts, then painstakingly restore them by hand. That way the watch still has all its original history - but with a facelift

I personally prefer my nice watches to not be battered and bruised. I'm not into watches for horology so much as I'm into the aesthetics and visual appeal of a watch - it's more like jewellery for me.

For my daily, I wear a Timex then my 'exotic' watches are for the weekends and special occasions so I like them to look nice and shiny. I would prefer a nicely and thoughtfully restored watch vs a battered one!

[_Rodders_]

I understand if the patina is yours but I think I'd feel like a bit of a Walt taking on someone else's.

[DonkeyApple]

_Rodders_ said:

I understand if the patina is yours but I think I'd feel like a bit of a Walt taking on someone else's.

Definitely a risk of that but I'd think it's much more interesting to have something that has had a life and potentially feeling a bit of a Walt is a million miles away from being a Walt and going around imagining it was your life.

[DonkeyApple]

22s said:

I think it's really cool to restore it to its original new glory after such a long (and painful by looks of it! ) life. As someone alluded to in the YT comments, the restorer didn't just fit a load of new parts to "restore" it into a frankenwatch. Instead, they took great care and attention to disassemble the watch into its original parts, then painstakingly restore them by hand. That way the watch still has all its original history - but with a facelift

I personally prefer my nice watches to not be battered and bruised. I'm not into watches for horology so much as I'm into the aesthetics and visual appeal of a watch - it's more like jewellery for me.

For my daily, I wear a Timex then my 'exotic' watches are for the weekends and special occasions so I like them to look nice and shiny. I would prefer a nicely and thoughtfully restored watch vs a battered one!

My thought is that there are 99.9% of them ever made that fit that requirement but almost none that have been treated as an every day consumable and it makes them too rare to just turn them back into the normal object. Especially as the days of these types of watches being used as casual dailies has ultimately ended.

[ATG]

DonkeyApple said:

_Rodders_ said:

I understand if the patina is yours but I think I'd feel like a bit of a Walt taking on someone else's.

Definitely a risk of that but I'd think it's much more interesting to have something that has had a life and potentially feeling a bit of a Walt is a million miles away from being a Walt and going around imagining it was your life.

And the point is that the customer should be free to choose. If they want the watch to look like new, great! If they don't, great!

In my case I don't want my Dad's old rolex to look like new and that means I have to find independents to service the thing and they have to have a somewhat illicit way of getting spare parts and that's just ridiculous.

[the-norseman]

Watches tell stories,leave them as they are.

[Hoofy]

Agreed.

DonkeyApple said:

_Rodders_ said:

I understand if the patina is yours but I think I'd feel like a bit of a Walt taking on someone else's.

Definitely a risk of that but I'd think it's much more interesting to have something that has had a life and potentially feeling a bit of a Walt is a million miles away from being a Walt and going around imagining it was your life.

Yes, it's fine providing you don't go around telling them that you wore that watch while freediving the Mariana Trench. I nearly managed to get my hands on an SBS-owned PVD CWC diver watch (but was too slow). Would have been cool to have owned it.

Oh, it also reminds me of the time I saw a Mk2 Speedmaster that had gone into Omega for a service and they'd rounded off all the edges ffs!

As an aside, why are we less interested in a car that has had a scrape with a Brands Hatch armco?

Edited by Hoofy on Sunday 20th September 17:36

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Hoofy said:

Yes, it's fine providing you don't go around telling them that you wore that watch while freediving the Mariana Trench. I nearly managed to get my hands on an SBS-owned PVD CWC diver watch (but was too slow). Would have been cool to have owned it.

Oh, it also reminds me of the time I saw a Mk2 Speedmaster that had gone into Omega for a service and they'd rounded off all the edges ffs!

As an aside, why are we less interested in a car that has had a scrape with a Brands Hatch armco?

Edited by Hoofy on Sunday 20th September 17:36

That's a good point. I was awed by the work the chap in the video did to the AP: his skill is unquestionable. In this case he did what the original owner wanted and fulfilled his brief brilliantly. Fair play.
But a thing is only original once. No restoration can be original. That's only an issue if originality is important to the owner.
There is a difference between restoration and repair.
My Seiko BFK now needs repair because there's damage to the crystal. It doesn't need restoration because it works perfectly and I don't want its "battle scars" erased. I've owned it from new (2007) and it looks like I've been hammering with it but it's the second best timekeeper I've ever owned. (The best is another Kinetic and both spank the bottoms of the two Rolexes I've owned, which were decidedly inferior).
You can't achieve originality, you can only fake it. But there's nothing wrong with functional repair. What the chap in the video did with the bracelet was great for example. A worn out bracelet is a PITA.

[pistolpedro]

I watch the channel a lot and I think I'm probably the opposite on this. Unless the watch has some particular historical significance, I'd probably always take the watch at the end vs the beginning.

I think there's something to be said for bringing a watch back to how it was originally intended to look. The way the different finishes, surfaces and edges work together is such an important part of the overall design, and with heavy wear those details can become less defined.

There's also a difference between honest wear and damage. Scratches and patina can be really attractive, but dents, badly rounded edges, corrosion or previous poor polishing can sometimes take away from the original design.

Personally, I just enjoy seeing a watch brought back to that original form. You get to appreciate the design properly, but also the skill of the person who s worked on it. There's something quite satisfying about seeing or owning what a really good restorer can do.

In a similar vein, I really enjoyed this video. Seeing the dial restoration in particular was really interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSHf_4r9XvE

Edited by pistolpedro on Sunday 20th September 22:17

[Don1]

Watches can tell a story better than time. Let them do so, I say.

[tumble dryer]

Loved the video (thanks DA). So skilful, and so patient.

If it were mine I think I'd treasure the 'lived-in' look.

But unless the original was ridiculously priced, I'd have the finished article were I buying it.

...depends on what end of the see-saw you're sitting I suppose.

[Courser]

_Rodders_ said:

I understand if the patina is yours but I think I'd feel like a bit of a Walt taking on someone else's.

You’d feel a “Walt” ( god how I hate that term) for buying a used watch ?

That’s pretty strange.

[Don1]

_Rodders_ said:

I understand if the patina is yours but I think I'd feel like a bit of a Walt taking on someone else's.

I can get what you mean, however, the only time I would feel a 'walt' would be wearing a unit watch I didn't earn.

[Nicetobenice]

I was guilty of this twenty something years ago.

I had "won" a really cheap Explorer 5504 on ebay (back when such things were possible) and took it to the local dealer to get it checked.

They were really enthused by it and recommended a full service.

Feeling really pleased with my ebay victory I agreed and off it went. It came back with a a brand new face, new hands and a new crystal that was a different profile to the orginal. It was still quite a nice useable watch but it had completely lost the charm. When I came to sell it several years later, whilst it had gone up in value quite a lot it wasn't an easy sale and was quite a few K less than it would have been with the original parts.

Lesson learned and I don't even get a watch polished when it's serviced now.

[Wills2]

He does some fantastic restorations, giving a new lease of life to old and battered watches, I really can't see the issue for me he's rectifying the vandalism that daily wear has visited upon the watch, not creating it.

[DonkeyApple]

Wills2 said:

He does some fantastic restorations, giving a new lease of life to old and battered watches, I really can't see the issue for me he's rectifying the vandalism that daily wear has visited upon the watch, not creating it.

The videos are impressive as are the end results.

It's going to boil down to personal preference as to whether eradicating the life and history of an object is the vandalism opposed to the vandalism being the using of an object. But ultimately, it's more a matter of the market being fully dominated by immaculate, unused watches whereas items with patina and history are rare things and much less likely to be created today as so few are used as watches.