[jhbadger]

Is it a Seiko 5 (self winding)? Yeah, those aren't that accurate, but I wouldn't call them "junk" - they do lose or gain a minute or two a day in my experience - I generally correct mine every couple of days against my phone or computer though.

[QuercusMax]

A minute or two a DAY??? I get pissed off that the microwave in my kitchen loses a minute a week!

[jhbadger]

Yeah, but I'm sure your microwave isn't mechanical. What makes a mechanical watch cool, even a cheap one, is that there are no electronics at all - just gears and springs and things. I think that's worth a trivial bit of inaccuracy even if a boring $10 digital watch can easily beat a $200 mechanical one in accuracy.

[throw2ih020]

My guy a mechanical watch should lose like a minute a _month_, tops. Get your watch serviced.

[jhbadger]

A real, completely mechanical watch? No battery or crystal? I'm sure my Seiko isn't be best there is and maybe it could be improved with servicing, but I think electronics have given people unreasonable expectations of accuracy

[Analemma_]

No, the people responding to you are correct: even the crummiest mechanical watches should not drift by more than 10-15 seconds/day. COSC certification, which most nice mechanical watches have, requires no more than 2 minutes/month (4 seconds/day) of drift, and most do even better than that, 1-2 seconds/day is normal.

If your Seiko is really drifting by minutes per day, something's badly wrong with it and you should get it serviced.

[throw2ih020]

I collect watches and even my cheapest old Chinese automatics will lose like 30 seconds per month or so.

[throw2ih020]

If your Seiko is losing a minute a day it badly needs a service to adjust the timing.

[BoxOfRain]

I have a 1950s mark 2 Shturmanskie as my main watch, the same model Yuri Gagarin wore into space. It's a 'frankenwatch' in that it's been assembled from parts of other watches, albeit in this case they're the right parts from the right period except the dial, which is a reproduction to avoid the considerable amount of radium the Soviets liked to put in their pilot watches.

Now that is an unreliable watch! It'll usually lose maybe a minute a day which is actually pretty decent for something from when Khrushchev was in power, but it likes to randomly stop or occasionally start running fast or slow according to its mood. I'm not sure how much of it is because it's a Soviet frankenwatch and how much is that it's hard to find people who'll work on Soviet watches in the UK.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Marshall from Wristwatch Revival has refurbished Soviet watches.

[Analemma_]

There's a guy in Germany making homages to the cosmonaut watches under the Strela name (maybe he bought the rights? I don't know how IP works re: former Soviet brands) which have Chinese Seagull movements in them.

They look really cool, although for the price he's asking (around 350€), I'd almost rather they use quartz movements despite the hit to historical accuracy, I don't think a 350€ mechanical chronograph can really be trusted.

[dataflow]

> I generally correct mine every couple of days against my phone or computer though.

Why do you put up with that?