Ebel Tarawa Chronograph, repair or replace?
Discussion
Hi,
Looking for some opinions on whether I should repair or just replace my Ebel Tarawa chronograph watch. I have owned it almost 20 years and bought it as a present to myself when I got engaged to my wife.
I was closing my car door one day and the strap detached from the case causing the watch to fall and hit the pavement. Watch case is dented, sapphire crystal face scratched, and obviously it will also require a replacement strap.
The quote I have from Ebel to repair it totals £3895.00. This is broken down as £2195.00 for service to the automatic movement, and £1700.00 for case refurbishment, new sapphire crystal glass, and Ebel Black Alligator strap.
I understand that the watch will never be worth the repair costs, but it obviously has a sentimental value to me too and I still like the style and size of the watch.
However, I have now seen a Fredrique Constantine watch that costs not much more than the repair for the Ebel, and I’m in a quandary about what to do.
Any opinions would be most welcome, thanks.
Some photos of the damage from Ebel are below.
Looking for some opinions on whether I should repair or just replace my Ebel Tarawa chronograph watch. I have owned it almost 20 years and bought it as a present to myself when I got engaged to my wife.
I was closing my car door one day and the strap detached from the case causing the watch to fall and hit the pavement. Watch case is dented, sapphire crystal face scratched, and obviously it will also require a replacement strap.
The quote I have from Ebel to repair it totals £3895.00. This is broken down as £2195.00 for service to the automatic movement, and £1700.00 for case refurbishment, new sapphire crystal glass, and Ebel Black Alligator strap.
I understand that the watch will never be worth the repair costs, but it obviously has a sentimental value to me too and I still like the style and size of the watch.
However, I have now seen a Fredrique Constantine watch that costs not much more than the repair for the Ebel, and I’m in a quandary about what to do.
Any opinions would be most welcome, thanks.
Some photos of the damage from Ebel are below.
The lowest cost solution would be get a similar watch on ebay or used and get the case / crystal swapped over - you dont need to send it back to the manufacturer unless you want to get rinsed - there are plenty of skilled watchamers in England who can do this and inspect the movement to see if its ok on a timegrapher
Accidents happen, I dropped the movement of my Grand Seiko last year and mangled the second hand, watchmaker attempted to straighten but it still looked like the great wall of China and I could not live with that so got a new movement from Japan and got the second hand from that, plus parts to keep in the future.
Accidents happen, I dropped the movement of my Grand Seiko last year and mangled the second hand, watchmaker attempted to straighten but it still looked like the great wall of China and I could not live with that so got a new movement from Japan and got the second hand from that, plus parts to keep in the future.
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