Watch Repair
Our most common watch repairs are battery replacement and watch strap sizing or replacement.
Watch Battery Replacement
We carry many types of watch batteries and will replace the battery while you wait. First, we test your battery with a voltmeter to be certain that the battery has lost its charge. Sometimes a watch will stop working even though the battery is still fully charged — under those circumstances the battery contacts usually need to be cleaned and we provide this as a free service to our customers.
If your battery needs to be replaced, we carry a one-year guarantee on watch battery replacements purchased from us. When we install a new battery, we inscribe our mark and the date of installation on the battery. Should your watch stop working, bring the watch to us for testing as soon as possible — we will replace it at no cost if the battery carries our mark and has expired within one year of the date inscribed on the battery.
Watch Strap Sizing and Replacement
We carry a wide variety of watch straps from Hadley-Roma and other quality manufacturers. Prices range from $12.95 for basic leather or metal straps to over $80 for genuine crocodile or other specialty materials. When you purchase your watch strap from us we will replace it while you wait at no additional cost. We can also attach watch straps that you provide for a minimal service charge.
Other common watch repair services we provide are:
- Replacing pins that secure a watch strap to the timepiece
- Replacing watch hands that have become detached
- Crystal repair and replacement
- Stem replacement
Mechanical Watch Repair
Our in-house watchmaker will perform a complete overhaul of mechanical (wind-up) wristwatches and automatic (self-winding) watches. This process involves cleaning, oiling and calibrating the gears and mechanisms that keep the watch running on time.According to the volume of watch repairs in-house, we will give you an estimated turnaround time for the repair and will call when the timepiece is ready for pick-up. Because of the delicate nature of mechanical timepieces, and difficulty in finding parts at times, some may take longer to repair than others. We want to ensure that your watch is in good running condition and can keep proper time before we return it to you.
On rare occasions, however, and as much as we try, some timepieces cannot be restored to its original working condition. This can be due to a variety of reasons, such as unavailability of replacement parts or simply inferior quality, even for an old watch. In these instances your best options may be
- To accept that it will not keep perfect time; or
- To convert the watch to a quartz movement.
We've been ticking in Evanston since 1936 and have built our reputation on quality watch repair services…from simple watch battery replacement to complete overhaul of antique timepieces.