About

This is my first blog post so I had better start with a little bit about myself.

My name is Marc Holzer and I am based in Northampton in the UK. I am a self-taught watch maker / tinkerer / mechanic / mender or what ever other term you choose to use for someone who does for watches what the guy in the garage does for your car; ie. general servicing and maintenance, repairs, restoration, etc. I have even been know to make the odd part that I was otherwise unable to source.

It is something of an obsession that for me started out of idle curiosity about 15 years ago, developed into a self financing hobby about 10 years ago, and gradually developed into an all-consuming passion which now helps to supplement the day job income.

Originally all I did was buy up “spares or repair” non-runners and junkers from eBay or car boot sales for the challenge of getting them to work again. Gradually over time and as my success rate improved I found I had accumulated something of a collection of half-decent working watches that just sat in a drawer so I started to sell them back on eBay.

I also signed up to a number of online watch forums to pick up tips and advice and see what other watch tinkerers were up to. I still contribute occasionally to a forum called “Watch Repair Talk” which has to be the friendliest watch forum on the net and is a great place for anyone interested in dabbling in the world of watch repair (mechanical and electronic) to start. Through my forum posts and my eBay sales I gradually started to get requests to service other people watches, and so the hobby has slowly evolved into part time second job.

I do still resurrect the eBay and car boot scrappers, with my main interest being vintage mechanical wrist watches from the 1940’s to the 1970’s, however the servicing work brings in everything from cuckoo clocks to stop watches, synchronous motor mantle clocks to balance wheel electronics, quartz to pendulums, and so on. I enjoy the challenge and I love the variety, there’s never a dull moment

So why a blog? Well primarily to share what I do with a wider audience with the hope that I can pass on tips and hints to others, and get help when I get stumped. Also to let the world know what I do and maybe drum up a bit of extra business if needs be. To start with though it’s just somewhere to post up photo walk-throughs of what crosses my work bench. It would be nice if it should proved to be of interest to someone else.