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Informations: Spare Part Sourcing

There are wholesalers keeping huge stocks of spare parts available. But they can't help in every partcular case.
Moreover, for newer watches there may be problems with the restrictive spare-parts policy of some manufacturers, and when purchasing a watch of them, the customer should consider whether he wants to accept that he is committed helplessly to the manufacturer.

For old watches it happens even for very common calibres that the regular sources are dried out. But this doesn't imply that a needed part isn't around anywhere in the world - never touched, or in reasonable shape from a donor movement. The question is just:

How and where to get access to it?

Index

Galileo
Wholesaler
Manufacturer

ebay
Parts Mafia
Parts Dealer

Bidfun and Pink Pages
Reproduced Parts
Donor Movements

To Overview

Wholesaler

Manufacturer

For collectors and hobbyists no real help: They sell only to professionals, and they have good reasons to do so:
     Excessive consumer protection leaves the reponsibility for a failing deal always to the seller. And even worse in Europe: Legislators regard consumers as idiots; they can't abandon even not partially their rights, neither in written form nor notarized.
     Accordingly dealers organize their business: Some sell to everyone, and compensate legal consequences with high prices. Other restrict to professional customers; this simplifies organization and allows lower prices, because conditions can be negotiated with professionals, like with human beings.
   With a trade licence it is possible to obtain full mental accountability. But it is questionable whether this advantage is worth the administration effort, just for occasional sourcing of spare parts.

Direct contacts between consumer and manufacturer are too rare and too special to discuss them here.
However, an authorized dealer can make a contact to the manufacturer. He is not obligated to supply parts, which the customer carries to his trusted watchmaker, or which are used for hobby purpose. Some dealers care for their customers, others not, but a customer can choose the dealer.
Of course it is possible to make use of the manufacturer service, directly or via dealer, to solve spare-part problems. Some manufacturers keep almost everything on stock or even reproduce parts, even for watches having since long exceeded the normal periode of usage. But this is not cheap, and sometimes it is worth to consider the reproduction of a part by a watchmaker.

ebay

Hopeless,.....

Single parts are scarcely exchanged via ebay. It can't be expected that a particular part can be sold within some days. Who ever wants to get rid of parts, will offer them as bulk, specified as follows:
1) With photos showing approximately the quantity, but not any detail,
2) with mentioned gross weight,
3) with mentioning few (expensive) brands, read from some packages.

One can just buy chest-wise parts, inspect them for the dream part, and sell the stuff again. This costs charges, even if not successful.

....but not senseless

There are people who purchase randomly lots of parts and sell them individually. They need not worry about the contents of a convolute, because the more their stock grows the bigger the fraction sold with profit. Of course every tinker can create such a stock; but he better should not calculate the price for the few parts he really uses.

Parts Mafia

Parts Dealer

Efficient, but not commonly accessable

Many watchmakers care for contacts to colleagues, and parts are exchanged within such networks.
      This is a tediously elaborated competition advantage, and of course free riders aren't favored, drawing advantages from such pool without own contribution, and the less hobbyist.
     However, a collector can carry his watch for repair to a watchmaker with such connections. Mostly this is better than do it yourself anyway.
     Similar structures exist in watch forums - as long as the ratio between giving and taking is sufficiently balanced out. This can of course be used, but everyone should contribute to the pool to guarantee a long life for this exchange.

Good value for the money, but not cheap

Dealers accumulate huge stocks, just to offer a wide collection. Well organized this may be profitable without high prices. Such dealers are mentioned in my link list .
     Moreover there are many amateurs: Who ever creates a parts stock for his own collection, will soon notice that just few parts of the stock are actually used, and that he should better sell some parts to minimize the costs for his stock.
     Both, professionals and amateurs are invited to use the division Spare Parts, Materials free of charge. As it is possible to ask buyers for options, one can offer thousands of different parts with just one posting.
     A remark refering prices: If someone buys 1000 parts for 10 Euros, and sells one of them for 10 Euros during his life, he makes no profit. But if you self buy 1000 parts, and don't find the needed among them, you simply waste money. Buying a needed part for 10 Euro is surely the more economical approach.

bidfun and Pink Pages

Ranfft Watches

Free of charge, attractive for buyers and sellers

Especially for parts the shop division is suitable:
1) It is free of charge, regardless the runtime.
2) The offer can be listed for maximum one year - no need to find a buyer for a particular part within few days. Of course the item can be relisted; the limit just prevents dead bugs.
3) Many different parts can be covered with one posting. For instance you can post a calibre, and the buyer enters which part he needs for this calibre. Or you post a particular part, and the buyer enters the calibre for which he needs this part.

Maybe lots of material boxes all over the world will form a collection, which can supply nearly every part. This will not replace parts dealers, since it will remain more comfortable to order there. But if they can't help, such material-box battery could surely enhance the chances.

Sorry, almost nothing for sale

Visitors of the archive of the Pink Pages sometimes believe all these treasures are for sale. Unfortunately not - the archive is just an assistence for evaluating and identifying watches and movements. Nothing for sale though.

I can't help much with parts or movements. Some are offered in the shop, but they will never become many. But you can enter items in the want-to-buy section. Maybe this is not yet promising, but if nobody starts to enter searched items, it will never become attractive for parts dealers to visit these pages currently.

Else I only know the following sources:

Boley
Flume
Colditz (only email)

Otto Frei & Jules Borel Inc
Römer
Westphal

Galileo

An Idea Needs Time

Galileo Galilei's ideas needed some 200 years until a pope accepted them, and another ca. 200 years before another pope found them to be good.
Well, watch enthousiasts aren't no popes, at least most of them, and therefore the idea presented here has probably a better chance.

The Situation

1) You need a part, and precisely know which.
2) Matching parts sleep likely worldwide in some 1000 material boxes.
3) None of the 1000 box owners does the effort to offer the desired part to the public.
4) The defective watch drops into box no.1001.

The Solution

A watch is worthless without the missing part, but with the part it has a value of EUR 100.00. Thus the owner could pay EUR 100.00 for the part. So he gives an according note to the rest of the universe. This wakes one of material-box owners: For this price he is willing to bring it personally right to the front door, and types this into an entry field. Another box owner would ship it, but for just EUR 50.00. Even under Windows a computer can distinguish between both prices, and so the sercher gets an email that the part is available cheaper than thought. He agrees by a mouse click, and the deal goes ahead. Or he waits for further offers.

Impossible?

Well possible here! Of course ebay could not realize such feature, because it is impossible to calculate the fees for it. Unfortunately most people are popes regarding questions of faith: If something is not available on ebay it doesn't exist, even if it is the only way to make contact between the potential buyer and the owner of a part. But keep patience - the next 400 years will cure the problem.

Reproduced Parts

Donor Movements

Still possible

Watchmakers got their designation not for nothing: If necessary they made new parts, and some still do. Thera are actually watches with a collectors value that makes for instance reasonable to engineturn a staff, if sourcing a replacement is impossible.
Moreover modern processing technologies allow the reproduction of many parts even in small scale at effordable prices. Sometimes even classic calibres are completely reproduced, and henceforth parts are available again for them.
But keep in mind that reproductions are often based on old samples instead of original drawings. So quality and fit depend on effort and knowledge spent for the production. Anyway, a reproduced part is better than none, if it can be trimmed to function properly.

Gambling

There are old replacement movements which were never used, and often even reasonable stocks are digged out. Such movements show obviously whether they were properly stored. If no corrosion is visible, scarcely more than cleaning and lubricating is necessary.
More dubious are used movements: Most are from gold watches butcherd for melting. With good luck the watch was butchered because it wasn't longer attractive as jewelry, and often such movements just need minor care. With less luck the movement was broken out of the case; missing or destroyed winding parts are the rule, and often even plate and bridges are not usable. Without luck you are, if the movement is precisely that what was replaced by another donor movement, or if already important parts were removed.

Among Spare Parts, Materials movements are offered by Ranfft Watches. They come from the sources described as dubious above, but they were bought to fill gaps in the movement archive. Visually attractive samples are selected, checked, and partially even repaired. The bigger fraction drops into the matearial box, but the usable are sold with return privilege. This is a special situation, no recommendable business idea.
Who ever is butchering watches, doesn't check the movements; they are sold without describing the condition. So the images need to be checked carefully:
1) A movement with dial in reasonable shape and stem is almost always usable.
2) A movement without stem and/or seriously corroded dial is almost always trash.
3) Never invest your hope into parts which are not visible in images.

...the alternative - free of charge!

Dr. Roland Ranfft
Im Eichfeld 8
41844 Wegberg-Wildenrath
Germany

phone +49 (0)2432 491604
fax +49 (0)2432 491605
email: info@ranfft.de

Last update: 09-01-11