My Rolex Air King Date keeps terrible time.
Discussion
In a nutshell..My dad left it to me. Huge sentimental value but despite it having been serviced (old school watchmaker in Cheltenham) it's still rubbish.
I'm actually not really bothered as the time is always with you on your phone but I thought I would see if this is normal for a watch that could be 40+ years old.
It looks lovely and I would still wear it if it stopped completely as it keeps dad close.
I'm actually not really bothered as the time is always with you on your phone but I thought I would see if this is normal for a watch that could be 40+ years old.
It looks lovely and I would still wear it if it stopped completely as it keeps dad close.
Hard to say, without more information.
What’s ‘rubbish’ timing? Everybody has their own expectations, but excellent time-keeping in a typical modern watch would be considered gaining or losing 5 seconds daily, with many bog-standard, mass produced calibres deemed acceptable by manufacturers at +/- 30 seconds.
Quality vintage watches like yours in good condition can be made to run well, but it is 40 years old, after all. You might be able to play around with overnight positioning (e.g. dial up/down, crown up/down) to counteract any small time gain or loss during daytime. But anything more than a minute a day and you likely have bigger issues at play that will need more than just a regulation, and checked by a watchmaker.
Do you wear it every day and keep it well wound? If not, the watch’s accuracy will suffer.
Is the daily time loss or gain consistent i.e. is it always fast or slow by roughly the same amount each day of consistent wear (e.g. day-after-day of similar wear pattern in an office)? If so, that’s good – it’s stable and can be regulated if not too excessive.
Or was it doing well over a period of time and suddenly departed from good timing?
Have you exposed it to any magnetic sources e.g. speakers, magnetic closures on iPad cases?
Have you dropped or banged it?
It really needs someone with a Timegrapher machine to spend 5mins with it and try and see what’s going on.
If you had the service recently, then your watchmaker should be your first port of call – typically they should be guaranteeing their work for at least 6 months, but longer is common.
Your reference to an ‘old school’ watchmaker is interesting. I don’t know anything about them, and have no desire or intention to unfairly denigrate them without knowing more, but there are some rogue operators around, and a ‘service’ means many things to many people. The British Horological Institute has a section on their website where they maintain a register of accredited watchmakers (which again, doesn’t mean anyone not on it is necessarily useless): https://bhi.co.uk/find-a/repairer/
I’m sure it’s a nice old watch, and the heirloom aspect makes it especially cherished, but if genuine it’s also a high-quality piece that – properly worked-upon & maintained – should still be capable of pulling its weight as a solid everyday tool for the next few decades, if not even longer.
First call should really be to your watchmaker, or there’s ‘Variomatic’ & ‘Riggathemighty’ on here who get a good rep and could take a look for you (not that I’ve used either or can personally attest to their work).
Rolex do an excellent job & provide a two-year warranty also, but they are often unsympathetic when it comes to treating cherished old watches, so be fully aware beforehand of exactly what work you agree to them doing, otherwise they're liable to junk the bracelet or polish all your Dad's wear history clean off it.
What’s ‘rubbish’ timing? Everybody has their own expectations, but excellent time-keeping in a typical modern watch would be considered gaining or losing 5 seconds daily, with many bog-standard, mass produced calibres deemed acceptable by manufacturers at +/- 30 seconds.
Quality vintage watches like yours in good condition can be made to run well, but it is 40 years old, after all. You might be able to play around with overnight positioning (e.g. dial up/down, crown up/down) to counteract any small time gain or loss during daytime. But anything more than a minute a day and you likely have bigger issues at play that will need more than just a regulation, and checked by a watchmaker.
Do you wear it every day and keep it well wound? If not, the watch’s accuracy will suffer.
Is the daily time loss or gain consistent i.e. is it always fast or slow by roughly the same amount each day of consistent wear (e.g. day-after-day of similar wear pattern in an office)? If so, that’s good – it’s stable and can be regulated if not too excessive.
Or was it doing well over a period of time and suddenly departed from good timing?
Have you exposed it to any magnetic sources e.g. speakers, magnetic closures on iPad cases?
Have you dropped or banged it?
It really needs someone with a Timegrapher machine to spend 5mins with it and try and see what’s going on.
If you had the service recently, then your watchmaker should be your first port of call – typically they should be guaranteeing their work for at least 6 months, but longer is common.
Your reference to an ‘old school’ watchmaker is interesting. I don’t know anything about them, and have no desire or intention to unfairly denigrate them without knowing more, but there are some rogue operators around, and a ‘service’ means many things to many people. The British Horological Institute has a section on their website where they maintain a register of accredited watchmakers (which again, doesn’t mean anyone not on it is necessarily useless): https://bhi.co.uk/find-a/repairer/
I’m sure it’s a nice old watch, and the heirloom aspect makes it especially cherished, but if genuine it’s also a high-quality piece that – properly worked-upon & maintained – should still be capable of pulling its weight as a solid everyday tool for the next few decades, if not even longer.
First call should really be to your watchmaker, or there’s ‘Variomatic’ & ‘Riggathemighty’ on here who get a good rep and could take a look for you (not that I’ve used either or can personally attest to their work).
Rolex do an excellent job & provide a two-year warranty also, but they are often unsympathetic when it comes to treating cherished old watches, so be fully aware beforehand of exactly what work you agree to them doing, otherwise they're liable to junk the bracelet or polish all your Dad's wear history clean off it.
Pretty good summing up by UnclePat ^^^
A 40 year old watch that's either been regularly (and competently) serviced, or had enough time and money thrown at it to make up for past neglect, should run as well as it did when it was new. The catch there is that (a) few 40 year old watches have been serviced regularly enough and (b) without access to the manufacturer's stores the chances of getting rid of all signs of wear are pretty slim - and will cost silly amounts if possible.
That said, well serviced and with "acceptable" wear, something like yours should be comfortably within 10 - 15 seconds a day and probably considerably better than that. So, the crunch question is - how lousy is lousy timekeeping?
A 40 year old watch that's either been regularly (and competently) serviced, or had enough time and money thrown at it to make up for past neglect, should run as well as it did when it was new. The catch there is that (a) few 40 year old watches have been serviced regularly enough and (b) without access to the manufacturer's stores the chances of getting rid of all signs of wear are pretty slim - and will cost silly amounts if possible.
That said, well serviced and with "acceptable" wear, something like yours should be comfortably within 10 - 15 seconds a day and probably considerably better than that. So, the crunch question is - how lousy is lousy timekeeping?
Thanks for the advice. It is absoloutely genuine (I remember my dad wearing it all that time ago). It loses probably 5 minutes a week. I can neither afford a Rolex service nor do I want to risk sending it off as I could not cope with losing it. Back to my watchmaker friend in Tivoli.
Kizmiaz said:
Thanks for the advice. It is absoloutely genuine (I remember my dad wearing it all that time ago). It loses probably 5 minutes a week. I can neither afford a Rolex service nor do I want to risk sending it off as I could not cope with losing it. Back to my watchmaker friend in Tivoli.
What do you think the chances are of the watch going missing? We're not talking about a unique process or a Newman Daytona!Why return to the guy who didn't sort it in the first place? Ok, if he's going to do it for free, go for it. If he's going to charge, I'd save up as long as necessary to return it to Rolex. Because the funny thing is, this is what they do! It's the bread and butter of their service people.
5 min / week is pretty poor and not something you should be encouraged to just put down to age given the quality of the watch. It is possible there may be wear / damage from past use that's causing it and lack of parts availability prevent it being put right, in which case "it's running" might be an acceptable result. But, if that is the case, would have expected your watchmaker to explain exactly what those limitations were.
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