Birks Enicar Ops update.

H

Hxt1

New member
I finally found someone local who can work on the Birks.
He used to service Rolex at Birks here in Vancouver.
bonus! The Birks is actually a local watch, and I may have access to the watchmakers cache, who originally serviced it!
ill be posting updates and pics here, when I receive the watch. I'm going to hold off on having the case coated, I will enjoy the patina for now. Have a great weekend all!
 
H

Hxt1

New member
Well.... This has been an ordeal, to say the least.
The watchmaker still has the Ops (it's been 5 months)! And there have been red flags, to say the least. I bought an nos crystal, hands, crowns, and spare movement from a member here, I also had a spare Enicar at home with a compatible movement, so I sent that along as well.
He sends me an email saying that there are parts missing from the movement AND the spare movement , and repairing/fabricating parts would be cost prohibitive (these movements are cheap and plentiful) I reminded him that there was a third fully functional movement, and that was that.
Finally I got impatient, and said I just wanted my watch back. This is where it gets interesting... He tells me that the crystal is "too big" and he sent it to Toronto to the "custom crystal cutters" so we have to wait for it to come back. He never asked me if it was ok to ship my watch accross the country (!!) And I'm beginning to feel like I made a big mistake leaving my watches with him. He's respected in the local community but the more I look at the guy and hear his story the more it seems like bs. I'm not going to air the guy out or slander him online but I am very concerned. I have the emails and they are baffling. Additionally, two of the watches I left with him came back, one doesn't have a winding stem (I had him replace the non factory crown with an nos crown on a lip Tallon ... It came back with the crown pushed on the tube, no winding stem(!) And I wanted the second hand calibrated on my speedy reduced, it came back missing the movement spacer, rattling around etc.... This leaves me less than confident regarding my Ops. He has finished an overhaul on my pre bond seamaster, but I think I'll wait to pick up and pay for that one until my Ops is back. Wondering what I should do here. I'm in Vancouver, if anyone in the community is local maybe you know of this fellow.
Cheers.
 
J

jbcollier

Member
Enicaristi
Sherpa
Sorry to hear of your grief. Good watchmakers are very thin on the ground, especially here in the wild west.
 
Joe_A

Joe_A

Moderator
Staff member
Enicaristi
Sherpa
A very upsetting story.

It doesn't sound at all hopeful, but I do hope you at least get the watch and all of the good components back.

I once sent a watch a 'watchmaker' and then after return to me in close to a year, and observing on the timegrapher that it was not running any better than when I sent it off to them, I returned it three more times over the space of another six or eight months. Each time the people gave me some story about what was wrong . . . and each time when it came home to me it ran on the timegrapher as poorly as it did the first time I sent it out.

If I did not have a timegrapher, I may have praised their work as the watch ran well enough superficially.

I gave them enough rope to hang themselves with it and hang themselves is what they did.

I finally sent the watch to RGM and it came back running superbly. I asked RGM what they found and they indicated to me that the movement was very dirty and looked as if it was untouched for years.
 
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