CG1120-0
Collecting watches is great fun and there are bargains to be had - I've been very fortunate to find a good number of watches at very reasonable prices... but, last year it dawned on me that I needed to start saving some money for repairs and battery replacements and so I set up a little fund for that very purpose.
Then my 1500 Series GMT battery died, it was the first battery I'd had go (apart from my F1 Kirium, which has a 'sleep' function and needs a new battery every 5-7 years) and I paid £50 to have the battery changed on the spot, with a 100M test, which it passed. But looking at my collection I started to think, three years of collecting and no batteries - 24 quartz watches; these things are all going to start going at once and it is going to sting!
Then I robbed that fund to buy a watch... it was bound to happen.
:)
Then I was going through my watch stuff and I found a receipt that came with my 2000 Multigraph, someone paid £90 at 'Watch Station' for a new battery and a water resistance test (which it failed!), and I bought that watch for about £250 if I remember correctly. This, I decided, was madness...
It kinda brought it home to me that if you send your watch back to TAG Heuer, that's one thing; I've sent my F1 Kirium back twice since I bought it (from new) and it cost me £85 or £95 the last time (IIRC) and if you do that then they test it to the full water rating and presumably change the seals if necessary, the downside is that it takes a few weeks to come back. On the other hand, if you take it to a good local watch man (somewhere like 'Time to Time' in Debenhams), you will get it back within the hour, and it will be tested (but only to 100M) but if it fails the test it will then need to be sent back anyway - at further expense, or you still have to pay and accept that the watch is not watertight.
Now if you have one or two watches, like me when I bought my first TAG Heuer, then you can accept a cost of £85 every few years, especially if you bought the watch new and it cost you £1000+, then it's reasonable to invest in it, but once you start buying from eBay and you pick up watches for £2-300, then it starts looking a bit silly to pay 1/3 of the price every few years just to get the battery changed - especially since you don't really know the history of the watch and if it's watertight anyway.
So towards the end of last year my wife's classic Formula 1 needed a new battery, which seemed to me like the perfect opportunity to have a go myself. I asked her if she wanted me to try doing it or did she want to pay £50, she said 'have a go', so I opened the back and got the number off the battery. A few days later the battery arrived having cost me the sum of 99p including postage (not even a cheap battery, a Swiss made Renata) and though it was slightly daunting, in truth it was pretty straightforward and once I'd done one I felt a lot better about it. My wife was over the moon that I'd saved her £50, so all well and good.
Then, as anticipated the watches started going, first my 500M Aquaracer, then my two-tone 3000 and then my two-tone S/EL, all within a few weeks. I tried to get the back off the Aquaracer but it would not budge and I decided maybe it would be best to send that one back, especially as the bezel needed some attention, so I sent that one back to TAG Heuer, but the 3000 I did myself and again it was straightforward.
Then came the S/EL, and taking the back off of that one I saw what I had dreaded finding... the battery had a metal plate across it held on by two tiny screws. This I was not keen on since I was sure to drop the screws (probably into the movement), but knowing I have several watches with this movement I figured I was going to have to give it a go.
Then I came across a video showing you how to change the battery in this movement and I realised that actually you don't need to undo the screws completely, you only need to loosen one of them and the plate swings out of the way - result!
Now, you might suggest that this is all very well, but when you take it to a store you are having the watch 'resealed'... which was my original thought, but really they don't do anything other than screw the caseback down, they don't 'reseal' it, all they do is test it to see if it is waterproof or not - and if that is important to you, then the DIY route is probably not for you. But personally I don't get any of my watches wet - ever, even my 500M Aquaracer, so for me this is not an issue.
But in any case, it doesn't really make a difference whether you do it or they do it, if the seals are good then it will be 'sealed', there's nothing they can do different to you, there's no magic watch voodoo spell they cast over the watch as they re-assemble it, it's just a screw-down back - all they can 'do' is test and tell you one way or the other.
So like I say, when you buy a second hand watch, unless you get a test receipt with it you really can't be sure if the seals are okay or not, but if you open the back and the o-ring is in good condition the chances are that it's okay. Again, I wouldn't recommend swimming with a watch unless you've had it tested, but if you pick up a watch for £250, do you really want to spend another £50-100 testing it?
I guess what I'm really saying is that if you have a lot of watches and you don't want to end up paying hundreds or possibly thousands of pounds out just to have the batteries changed, it's worth thinking about doing it yourself. The tools required can be purchased for less than £10 on eBay and the batteries are often 99p... so far I've found it's pretty simple, much easier than I thought it would be.
I'm not saying I would do all my watches myself, I'm minded to send my Microtimer back perhaps... and maybe my pristine F1 Kirium, but the watches I've picked up from eBay for less than £500 I will definitely do myself. Realistically, there's every chance that the last owner did exactly the same thing, if there's no receipt you just don't know.
There's another element to this as well, which has just occurred to me, if you have a large collection of watches. In a larger collection like mine, there's always going to be a watch that's the 'bottom' of the pecking order, the one that for some reason you just don't wear that often - even though I really like it, my silver 6000 Chrono is that watch at the moment, and not so long back I was thinking of selling it, I even listed it on eBay for an hour before I changed my mind and took it down. So if you're in that position with a watch you don't really want to have to spend £60 on it every few years... just to keep it in your watch box, that might be enough to persuade you to move it on. After all that watch is probably worth between £500-600 at the moment, so it's 10% of its value each time.
But I know some of you will find the idea of opening your watch yourself 'horrendous' and not so long ago I would have been the same. But really it isn't that hard and we're not talking about doing anything 'demanding' or technically difficult here - it's just a battery change, and you're perfectly happy to change batteries in pretty much everything else you own, aren't you?
For those of you keen to give it a go I have added a new 'Page' to the tab at the top of the blog called 'Batteries'. This contains some instructional videos and I will also use it to keep a record of which batteries are required for each of my watches. If anyone wants to let me know which battery your TAG Heuer takes I am more than happy to add that too.
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