A mishap leading to having it repaired and a full service at Damasko

I dropped my watch!

I dropped it face down, “flat on the crystal” on a tiled floor! I was initially relieved to see, when I picked it up from its landing place, that the crystal had survived. I initially thought I'd been lucky, and it had escaped unscathed.

However the shock of landing had dislodged the layer of luminous paint from the minute-hand. It came off in one single piece, and was free inside the watch, looking like another hand just rattling around inside.

The watch was now 6 years old and was probably due a service, the timekeeping had slowly drifted to around -2 seconds per day and appeared to be getting gradually worse month by month.

I emailed Isabella at Damasko to ask about the possibility of a service and the any repairs necessary, including a new hour-hand. She replied very quickly to say that a Full Service would be €260 and new hands were €25 each. The hand replacement would be done as part of the service (no additional costs beyond the part(s) themselves.

We aren't in the EU any more. What idiots thought that BREXIT was a good idea??

In the past it was simple, and quick, to send something back to Germany for repair. Not this time.

I used Royal Mail, but this time needed to declare the contents on a Customs form, and hope that the German Customs assessor didn't apply import duty on the way IN to Damasko (and then hope that the UK Customs don't charge me on the way back).

The watch was posted on November 9th 2022 and arrived, after a long delay in German Customs, on December 1st 2022.

I received a full estimate, including return carriage of €100 (Brexit again!), of €385 on 5th December, after the watch had been examined by the Damasko watchmaker. This was for full strip-down, clean, inspect, lubricate, rebuild, test/regulate, water-proof check etc. as well as replacement of the hour-hand. I gave the go-ahead by return email.

The repair was done, some additional parts were needed (second wheel, intermediate wheel and third wheel).

The invoice was received and I arranged payment via PayPal the next morning.

The watch is on its way back via FedEx, on 20th December. Now I have to wait to see what happens on the return trip. What will UK Customs do? How long will it take.

And how will it run?

— John Pumford-Green 22/12/22 06:58

Against all expectation my DA36 came back before the end of the year. It was delivered on Friday 30th December.

It came in a nice parcel with a Damasko Baseball Cap, Damasko pen, catalogue, Christmas Card and the old parts that were replaced in the service.

It's such a pleasure to have my watch back on my wrist again after over 2 months.

I'll keep track of its timekeeping now. Before the accident it was gradually slowing, and had reached the point of losing 4 seconds/day. It will be interesting to see what the rate is now, following a full service, in which 3 train wheels were replaced. I'll put it on the Timegrapher tomorrow afternoon once it's had 24 hours of normal wear to get fully wound. I'll also start a new “WatchCheck” measurement period to observe the overall daily rate each morning, as usual.

• First check on the Timegrapher after 2 days on the wrist.
• Initial indications are that it's power and positional variance is improved, rate is a little faster than expected