About ten or twelve years ago, I thought it would be hilarious to buy a “Rolex” watch. I’m a minor wristwatch collector, in a casual sort of way. My friends and family know about my proclivity to buy classic watches and restore them or occasionally buy a certain watch for its charm or uniqueness. To get back to the “Rolex”, I thought it would be an amusing trick to play on my friends. You know, just show up one day sporting a Rolex. Of courwe, the joke would be that after all the oohing and aahing was over, I’d expose it as a fake. If they thought about it, none of my family or friends would believe that I could afford any genuine Rolex. The cheapest one at that time was well over four thousand dollars.

Long story short, the joke was played and the “Rolex” was relegated to the back of my watch drawer, and only taken out to wear a time or two a year to keep it from sitting too long and being damaged from inactivity. It has self-winding (automatic) works that needs to be exercised now and again. All this leads up to the point of my story.

The watchmaker who used to do all of my cleaning and adjustments retired a short while ago. Since then, I’ve been casually looking for someone to replace him. I need someone who does excellent work at a fair price. Not too steep a hill to climb, I wouldn’t think. But, alas, it seems to be. The watchmakers whom I’ve located so far, are both costly and far away. I prefer an in-person relationship with my watch guy or lady.

A couple of years ago, a new watch sales and service store opened in my area. I’ve stopped there for replacement batteries a time or two but hadn’t sampled their repair abilities. Until now. A couple of weeks ago I decided to take the “Rolex” in for a cleaning and adjustment. This is a routine operation and shouldn’t cost more than fifty to seventy-five dollars. A hundred tops. The counter guy took it in, calling it a Rolex. I corrected him twice. He said the repairman would pick it up on Tuesday, and the Tuesday following that, they’d have an estimate for me. Fine. I don’t wear it anyway.

The second Tuesday comes and I get a call from the store counter guy. They can fix the Rolex for two-hundred-ninety dollars. Wow! It was a decade or so ago, but I only paid fifty bucks for this knockoff, blatantly fake, Rolex.

I’ve been around wristwatches and watch repair for most of my life. Here’s what I think the repairman should have told me if the watch was that bad off. He should have said, “the cost of repair far exceeds the value of the watch,” and asked if I was sure I wanted to go that way.

Instead, he saw an opportunity to take some rube for a ride. He surely must know that anyone can replace that phony Rolex with an even better phony Rolex for about a hundred to a hundred-forty dollars, from several sites on the Internet. They are advertised as fake Rolex and even have a warranty. For two-hundred-fifty bucks, you can buy a nearly perfect clone with a high-quality Swiss ETA automatic movement. With the ETA works, it would be the last watch you’d ever need and could leave to your grandchildren. This watch repairman was trying to rip me off and had to know it.

When it comes to watch repair, WATCH OUT!