I have a Seiko that belonged to my father. I’d like to get it repaired and use it. Any suggestions on where I should start looking for someone who can repair it please?

It may well be that it just needs a battery replacement, but I’d like to get it cleaned up a little bit too. Would a jeweller be my first stop?

Where do you live? There are good, old-fashioned watch repair places in Swindon and Cheltenham f’rexample

Near Reading, so not that far away.

Looks like Seiko’s service centre is in Maidenhead and I’m looking at around £80 -100 for a service to repair the movement. Wonder if there’s a cheaper way to do it.

For a watch with that sort of emotional value I’d just be sending it to Seiko and get it back knowing it’s been done properly.

That’s what I was just thinking. They’re so close to me as well, I could just drive there and drop it off.

£100 doesn’t sound that bad really, you’ll pay half that to get a battery change and reseal at most High Street places anyway. If that’s a service/refurb/general clean up I’d say that’s not bad at all.

I know a place in Birmingham that would have a look at it but that’d be no cheaper than that and they’re not a Seiko specialist.

Iles jewellers in Swindon are worth a go, recommended to me by a guy at work who was, coincidentally, getting his dad’s old Seiko seen to.

Proper old school non-poncey jewellers who do watch repairs on site.

Model number and a rule 1?

My local jeweller is £4 for a battery change.

£100 wtf?

My mate who’s a goldsmith in Corsham would replace the battery and make sure the seals are lubed for not a whole lot, but for anything that involves looking at the movement you need a proper watch repair place, and they’re few and far between. My mechanical watch, that I’ve had since 1972, needed a mainspring replaced and a service, and the only place I found that could do it locally charged me £460.

It’s worth over £1000 now, so it made sense to get it fixed, and it’ll last longer than I will, plus it’s part of my own personal history, but difficult to justify for most people, when the watch cost less than £100 new.

It’s a 7123-8520-P

I tried to find a picture of it, but all the ones I can find don’t have the lion head on them that this one has. Instead, they have a “Seiko” logo instead of the lionhead. Knowing my father, he bought it specifically for the lion head! 🙂

I’ll call Seiko tomorrow and ask what the deal is. Looks like they have trouble guaranteeing repairs for anything before 1999 due to part availability, so it may not be feasible.

The watch could be between 27 and 37 years old. It would be pretty cool to have something like that I could pass on. I was thinking of buying a fancy watch soon, but this one has a much cooler story behind it, so I might just hang on to it and damn the expense 🙂

So, I sent it to Seiko and it looks like my father had the movement, crown and strap replaced at some point so they’re not able to do any work on it to fix it. I tried to reach a compromise, but the age of the watch means a repair isn’t really possible.

Fair play to Seiko, they did the inspection and return to me for free. A bit gutted because I got a quote for a repair originally 🙁

Anyone know an indie watch tech who can replace a movement in a Seiko?

There are good, old-fashioned watch repair places in Swindon and Cheltenham 😉

Iles in Swindon, as mentioned, or Butlers in Cheltenham. Neither have anything as fancy or modern as a website, which will indicate the kind of establishment that they are.

Cheers IHN, I’m not too far from Swindon. I’ll get in touch with them.