Almost On Time

There is no fixed cost when it comes to repairing an old watch. Different watches have different parts and movements, some of which, maybe discontinued. A simple pin replacement is going to cost a lot less than a full sapphire crystal change and polish.

As a very stark comparison, the cost of replacing a battery, or even a complete quartz movement will be significantly cheaper than servicing a mechanical watch. Old watches with mechanical movements can often not be worth the cost of repair. Simply put, if you spend $200 to repair an antique watch movement, even when fully working the watch may be only be worth $100. This is not the case for every single watch, but the better the brand, the more worthwhile a restoration is.

Overall, refurbishment of an old watch is going to vary a huge amount. If you simply need a new stem or balance wheel, these are very easy things to get hold of. However, if you have a vintage dial that is no longer produced that has water damage – a specialist will be able to charge whatever they want since it is such a niche repair.

Bracelet Repair & Strap Replacement

Bracelet Stretch

Bracelet stretch repair is relatively inexpensive and should only cost $50-$100 for a watch to be repinned. It is not unusual to see an old watch with bracelet stretch. This simply means that the pins have been misaligned through years of taking a watch off and putting it back on.

This is a time-consuming task but is trivial and easy. Pins are taken out and then replaced with new ones. There is nothing complicated or difficult about it.

Bracelet & Link Replacement

Replacing links and bracelets can be expensive if you don’t already own them. Simply adding a link to a watch bracelet will take minutes at most and will cost around $15 at most. If you have the correct tools, this is a simple task that you can perform yourself.

Replacing a single link or bracelet that you don’t own is where the larger costs are incurred. For a fashion watch such as Michael Kors, it is possible to buy single replacement links for around $20, which isn’t too expensive. However, for more expensive brands such as Rolex or Omega, it is not uncommon to find links costing upwards of $100.

As for buying an entirely new watch bracelet. This once again depends on which brand of watch you own. Luxury Swiss watch bracelets can cost well over $1000 depending on what they are made from. Installing the bracelet is extremely simple and is often done for free by watch repair centers.

Leather & Silicon Strap Replacement

Due to the texture of both silicon and leather, as soon as they get torn a small amount, this will only get worse. Fortunately, both leather and silicon are less expensive than stainless steel and therefore are less costly to replace.

Even at the higher end of watch repair, brand new Tag Heuer silicon straps only cost in the region of $120. Unbranded watch bands are significantly cheaper and can be found on eBay for around $20. Here you will be able to pick up any size, color, or style you want for a good price. Installing the new band is extremely easy and can be done with a simple watch repair kit.

Battery Replacement

By far the most inexpensive repair of a watch is replacing the battery. If you have the correct tools, this can be done at home and will take you around 5-10 minutes.

Even if you don’t want to replace a watch battery by yourself, a replacement battery installation will only cost between $10-$30.

One point to mention is that if the quartz movement of your watch is completely broken, it is still relatively inexpensive to replace. Whilst a new mechanical movement will be anywhere from $50 to a four-figure sum, quartz movements are at the other end of the spectrum. Japanese quartz movements only cost around $15 to pick up and can be installed by a watch technician for a fee of around $30.

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Movement Servicing

Servicing, replacing, or refurbishing a broken movement is a hugely variable cost. At the low end, a service of a cheap Japanese automatic movement will cost anywhere from $50 upwards. From here, everything scales up very quickly.

ETA movements can be serviced as cheaply as $130 on the more basic end. As soon as complications are added, these costs rise very rapidly. Moonphase indicators, chronograph functions, and perpetual calendar complications all add up and push costs north of $300-$400.

Finding replacement parts for typical movements is incredibly easy since there are so many of them made. Any company such as ETA, Miyota, or Epson will have an abundance of spare parts for common movements. The costs only start to rise once a movement is discontinued or bespoke.

Glass/Crystal Replacement

When replacing the glass or crystal of a watch, you must first determine what kind of finish your watch has. Cheap fashion watches use mineral glass. This will cost around $5 for a watchmaker to buy, so you should expect to pay around $30-$40 in total for them to replace this.

A sapphire crystal is significantly more expensive since it costs a lot more to produce and is scratch resistant. For a standard replacement sapphire crystal, you should expect to pay closer to $80-$100 in total for a complete replacement.

Of course, OEM glass is even more costly and often needs to be ordered directly from the manufacturer. A replacement crystal from Rolex costs in the region of $900-$1000. It goes without saying that this is significantly more expensive than standard unbranded glass.

Polishing Watches

First of all, it should be noted that not all watches can be polished. Stainless steel, as well as precious metals such as gold can be polished to get scratches out – but not much else can.

Plated fashion watches are pretty much useless once they have large scratches or tarnishing since this coating cannot be reapplied.

Polishing a watch however, is not cheap since it is very time-consuming. The watch technician must take the watch apart and polish areas such as the bezel, case, and each individual link on the bracelet. Not to mention the abrasive consumables used to make the watch look nice.

This is why it generally costs $100-$300 for a watch to be polished depending on the skill level of what is required and material of the watch. If you have a single scratch that needs to be removed from a watch, this will be considerably cheaper and would cost around $50.

Hands, Dials & Everything Else

Opening Pandora’s box, there really cannot be a definitive estimate of how much it costs to repair watch dials, hands, crowns, and anything else you can think of.

The reason for this is that there is such a huge difference in the price range between every brand. Some watch brands may charge $20 for a new crown, whereas others may charge $320. If you own a particularly old watch, OEM hands or dials may no longer be available to purchase.

The labor repair cost for replacement parts is relatively inexpensive since replacing hands or a crown is not easy, but certainly not difficult either. A watch technician would probably expect to be paid anywhere from $30-$100 per hour depending on exactly what is asked of them.