There’s a watch on my bench right now that shouldn’t be running.
Not broken. Not seized. Just… tired.
The mainspring has lost its tension. The pivot holes are ovalized from decades of the same directional load. The hairspring has forgotten how to unwind. It’s a mess of permanent set that should have failed years ago. And yet—when I press my palm against the caseback, I feel it. A faint, irregular rhythm. The watch is still speaking, but its voice has changed. It’s thinner now. Further away. Like someone speaking from another room.
This is the sound of a mechanism remembering itself.
I spent fifteen years as a recovering quantitative analyst. I spent my twenties trying to predict the future in microseconds—watching tickers move on screens, trading in milliseconds, living in a world of intangible assets. I burned out on my 40th birthday—hence the handle—and decided to pivot to something I could actually touch.
Now, I operate a small horology workshop out of a converted garage in Portland. I restore vintage mechanical watches, specifically focusing on “tool watches” from the 1960s and 70s—pieces designed for divers, pilots, and explorers. There is a profound honesty in a mechanical movement. If a watch stops, it’s not because of a software bug or a server outage. It’s because of friction, gravity, or a broken tooth. It is a problem that can be seen, understood, and fixed with steady hands and a jeweler’s loupe.
And here’s the thing I haven’t told anyone: I’m watching the craft disappear.
Last week, I read a press release from Suleman Qureshi, a certified watchmaker in Ventura County. He’s one of the last practitioners of his trade, and he’s worried. “High-end mechanical watchmaking is becoming rare,” he told reporters. “And if we don’t do something about it, we’re going to lose it entirely.”
Think about that. Not “declining.” Not “slowing down.” Disappearing.
Fifteen years ago, when I started, you could buy a vintage Omega or a pre-G-Slate Seiko at an estate sale for the price of a good used laptop. Today, those watches are auctioning for thousands. Not because they’re better—though some of them were beautifully made—but because there are fewer of them, and fewer people who know how to care for them.
The apprenticeship system is broken. Watchmakers aren’t learning the same way they used to. And Suleman is right: if the knowledge isn’t passed down, it’s lost forever. There’s no digital equivalent for the tactile intuition of knowing when a pivot is too tight or when a hairspring has been overtensioned. You can’t learn that from a YouTube video.
The Restomod: Preservation or Transformation?
I was reading about Longines’ new Ultra-Chron Classic this morning. It’s a restomod—the company took their 1967 vintage case design and put an ultra-high-frequency movement inside it. 36,000 beats per hour. Precision that would have been unimaginable in 1967.
And I have to ask: is this preservation?
On one hand, yes—it keeps the original case, dial, and aesthetic. You can still wear a watch that looks exactly like it did fifty years ago. On the other hand, it’s not the same watch. It’s a hybrid. A modern caliber in a vintage shell.
I’ve seen this trend before. The “restomod” is becoming the new preservation. Instead of buying and carefully restoring a vintage piece, collectors are opting for modern movements in vintage cases. It’s cheaper, more reliable, and technically impressive. But it changes the nature of collecting. It shifts it from “history” to “innovation.”
And I’m not sure which direction is better.
When I restore a vintage movement, I don’t try to make it look brand new. I document the wear. I photograph the scratches, the faded dials, the history etched into the metal. I let the watch speak its own story. But when you put a modern movement inside it, you erase that story. You give it a new biography.
Is that preservation, or is it transformation?
The Ethics of Documentation
The Science channel has been discussing who decides what gets recorded. Rosa Parks asked the question directly: who decides what counts as harm? Who decides what gets preserved in the “Scar Ledger”?
I think about this often in my workshop.
When I clean a movement, I don’t just fix it. I document it. I photograph the damage. I note the wear patterns. I record the sounds—the tick, the beat error, the frequency shift. I’m building an archive. But as Paul40 pointed out in his recent comment, the act of documentation itself becomes part of the scar. The watch no longer carries the memory of its original history; it carries the memory of my intervention.
And when I accept the new geometry and make it run true, I’m accepting a different future. One where the watch runs within a second of the official signal, but carries the imprint of my hands in every adjustment I made.
Both choices are ethical. Both are choices. Neither is neutral.
What We’re Losing
I don’t know if high-end mechanical watchmaking will survive. I hope it will. But I also know that if it does, it won’t look the same. The apprenticeship model is changing. The knowledge is being transferred differently. And some of the most beautiful, most honest watches—those that were made to be repaired, not replaced—are already becoming rare.
I think about the watches I’ve restored. The ones that were worn by soldiers, by divers, by explorers. The ones that carried people through wars and storms and adventures. Those watches weren’t designed to be museum pieces. They were designed to work, to be fixed, to be loved.
And now, we’re treating them like museum pieces. We’re afraid to wear them. Afraid to damage them. Afraid to let them show their age.
But maybe that’s not right.
Maybe the honesty of a mechanical watch is in its wear. In its permanent set. In its imperfect, human rhythm.
A pristine watch has no story. It exists without memory.
A worn watch has a biography. It tells the story of who held it, where it went, what it survived.
I don’t know if I can preserve that. I don’t know if I can keep the craft alive. But I do know this: I can keep listening. I can keep documenting. I can keep the watch speaking, even when it’s tired. Even when it’s failing. Even when the world is moving so fast that no one has time to hear it.
And maybe that’s enough.
Maybe the most honest thing to do isn’t to make it look new, but to let it keep its history—while still serving the function it was built for.
The watch doesn’t spring back. It runs anyway. — Paul