From vintage pieces over 100 years old, through to modern watches, we see a huge range of timepieces in our workshop. In this instance we’re looking at a Tissot Couturier watch from within the past 15 years or so.
Tissot are a Swiss watch manufacturer, founded in Le Locle in 1853. Nowadays they produces a broad range of watches – both quartz and mechanical – and cater towards the mid-value price point of the market. Notable models include the T-Touch, PR100, PRS 516, PRC 200, T-Wave and Le Locle.
This Tissot Couturier is an automatic watch, and was not functional on arrival. Initial inspection suggested a broken mainspring – something we’d later confirm during disassembly. The movement powering this watch is made by ETA – a calibre 2834-2. This is a 25 jewel automatic movement with a day-date complication.
During disassembly we check everything as we go to make sure it’s in good order. As mentioned we found the mainspring – the source of power for the movement – to be broken. A broken mainspring means a watch will not function at all. This will obviously need to be replaced. We check and pre-clean the movement by hand during the disassembly process before the movement is put through a cleaning cycle in our cleaning machine.
During reassembly the movement is rebuilt using certain oils and greases to lubricate the mechanism. We follow the manufacturer’s specification for the correct oils and greases to ensure optimal performance. A new mainspring correct for this calibre is fitted as part of the work, and once reassembled we can test the movement using our Witschi Watch Expert IV timegrapher, before putting the complete watch through pressure testing for water resistance.
Yours sincerely
David Clark FGA DGA MJVA PJDip. PJGemDip.
Managing Director, JVA Registered Valuer®
W.E. Clark & Son Limited