What is the Expected Maintenance on a 40s Tri-Compax?

banders · Mar 5, 2023

Hi,

Thank you everyone who responded to my post here: https://omegaforums.net/threads/is-this-tri-compax-a-good-buy.156843/

I am blown away by the amount of knowledge in this forum and grateful for all the help!

Before I pull the trigger buying the watch above, I want to know what kind of maintenance I should expect. I'm guessing any watch from the 40s needs a considerable amount of maintenance.

- Is it difficult to find a watchmaker who works on tri compaxes? Does anyone know a good watchmaker in driving distance of NYC?
- Is it sometimes impossible to find a spare part if something breaks?
- How often do they need to be serviced?
- How should the watch be stored to best preserve it?
- Is there anything I should know before buying?

Thanks in advance!

Larry S · Mar 6, 2023

I had a discussion with the owner of the shop I use some years ago. His comment is that Universal Chronograph movements are extremely well made and no harder to work on than any other vintage movement. Yes spare parts are dear, and you want a restoration watchmaker with an excellent parts network and fabrication capability. Once serviced and worn sparingly you should be good to go but occasionally some of mine require a tweak. These are old birds. Don’t wear these on a rainy day, sweaty day and careful washing hands. This is a dress watch, no rough service. Store in a secure, cool dry place. For a city of immigrants, NYC seems to be a bit of a conundrum when it comes to service. There is a place up on the gold coast in CT that a member here knows. RGM in Mt Joy PA, near Lancaster is great with UG but they are very very busy right now.

In summary, these are beautiful, complicated old watches from a famous maison that has sadly gone by. I enjoy them more than I cus at them.

sheepdoll · Mar 6, 2023

I think a lot of the watches I got decades ago which were from estate sales date back to the 1940s. The better examples were cherry picked.

As I have often remarked about my friend and mentor John, who was basically a metallurgist. Who would state something along the lines. The metals in these watches will probably remain stable for 500 years. He would surmise that properly maintained a watch could possibly last 1000.

200+ year old watches and watch parts regularly are used in art projects. I have a few myself. 3 of them might actually run (although they have not been serviced in the last 1/4 century.) Not sure what other collectable is like that. 10s if not 100s of thousands were made.

150 or so years ago watches flooded the market. Millions of pocket watches were made. Now we are coming to the point where wristwatches are closing in on that 100 year milestone.

It seems though that the center of watch collecting seems to be located near NYC. With the east coast bias, it seems the best watchmakers are there, or over the boarder in Canada. Probably due to a century or more of tradition.

What makes watch collecting interesting is that with so many watches being made, the outliers are what excites. These watches are the ones that are more likely to survive.