Welcome everyone to the first instalment of my blog! Here, I aim to chronicle my profound fascination, and what I hope to be a long and serious affair, with vintage mechanical timepieces, particularly highlighting the allure of Seiko’s enchanting and reliable vintage watches!

My venture into collecting and restoring old Seikos has its roots in my childhood when I often dismantled things to uncover their inner workings (and rendering them non-functional in the process). Looking back, it’s clear that the absence of today’s ubiquitous digital devices played a profound role as well.

As I mentioned in the “About” page here, while tinkering with DIY kits and preparing Arduino sketches, one of the most impactful events to affect all of humanity struck in the early months of 2020. Stumbling upon an old HMT mechanical watch, most of which are powered by the 17-jewel hand-winding calibre 020 licensed from Citizen, I found myself with ample time during the lockdown. With no better activity in mind, I decided to crack it open, turned to a YouTube tutorial, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Fumbling through the initial steps, dismembering old movements, acquiring necessary tools and absorbing insights from seasoned experts through online posts and videos followed by hours hunched over my makeshift bench, I now find myself in the humbling depths of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Now, I want to embark on this blog as an act of self-encouragement with the audacious aim of furthering my education and learning more about restoration and repair of vintage watches.

Needless to say, I do not have any formal training as a watchmaker . With only the opportunity for self-instruction at my disposal, I regularly make comical blunders, perhaps an indication that I am taking my first steps up the “Slope of Enlightenment”.

The aim here is to share anything I find captivating and worthy of preservation with fellow aficionados. This exercise is purely a journey of self-discovery and I fully appreciate that the wealth of expertise and superior resources wielded by seasoned individuals in the vintage watch repair and restoration community far surpasses my own. I refrain from working on others’ watches primarily due to time constraints as my own pursuits take up much of my time. Moreover, I prefer having sole ownership of the outcomes, whether good or bad, resulting from my explorations and creative endeavours.

I am excited and look forward to presenting before you a wide array of mechanical watches, mainly from Seiko, with intermittent features of electric or quartz timepieces. Occasionally, there may be highlights from other manufacturers.