Hi everyone,
Has anyone sent their watch to Mark Heist before? Any thoughts on his work and whether it’s worth the wait?
Currently his wait time is 7 months. And I know a fellow watch collector who fixed his Breitling top time, paid $1800, and waited 8 months to get it back. Seems like a lot of money and a lot of time, especially for a piece in that price range. After almost a year what if I’m no longer interested in the watch or have found a better example. I may even forget he has it
I’ve also heard about Mark doing some things I’m not a fan of. Like replace an original Navitimer dial which wasn’t that bad, polish an unpolished watch, replace hands which ended up having a different lume than the lume on the dial. Anytime I go to my watch guy he always leans toward the side of don’t do anything to the watch unless it’s completely needed. Leave the watch original and enjoy the history it’s gone through.
I do have a watch that I’m interested in possibly replacing the dial because it’s destroyed and replacing the subdial hands because they are non salvageable. I’ve heard Mark has access to NOS dials which is a reason I’m interested in his services, also because he’s a vintage Bretling expert. The movement of the watch is fine and was serviced 2 years ago. But Mark and his site say that to do those things he has to first service/overhaul the movement for minimum $600, not including parts, then I’ll be “allowed” to change those things. Basically he has created a barrier to entry so people don’t just send their watches in to get parts swapped out. It’s understandable but isn’t great for my pocket or patience haha. My guy fully services a chronograph for $200 and I get it back in a few days.
Where do you guys draw the line on spending money fixing up a watch? I’m not talking about the regular service. Seems a bit unreasonable and careless to spend $1500-$2000 on fixing a watch that at the end of the day is worth 3 or 4 grand.