Expert: Melvin Mills - 9/27/2007

Question
sorry that I'm a bit of a novice about watches but i was wondering whether you could give me some advice about a pocket watch i recently got given. The watch was working fine, but then suddenly stopped, even after winding, still wouldnt work. Opened the back and saw that the balance spring (?) was distorted, parts of the spring are not in the right order and the whole spring is to one side. Is this an expensive problem to repair? or even repairable at all?

Answer
Tim,

The good news is that this issue is definitely repairable.  I say that because any watch can be repaired if one is willing to throw enough money at it.

How expensive is too tough to answer without looking at it.  there are too many variables to say.  Can you e-mail me a picture of the movement?  millswatchrepair.com

Did something happen to the watch?  Was it dropped?  It is unusual for the balance spring, which is called the hairspring, to tangle up all by itself.


Kind regards,

Melvin