Hi guys, I was going through some vintage cal 89 for sale and saw this SS cal 89. I'm pretty new to IWC and there are so many cal 89 version out there that made researching a tad bit more challenging. Does any one know which Ref. does it belong to?
I was told the crown and buckle is not original, so does anyone here know if the crown does match with the original?
Thanks for all the help guys!
The serial no. and case match back to 1955. 
Looks like my cal. 89 in rose gold but out of SS.
Presumably IWC is not so much interested to answer this kind of question as they do moet really nurture their heritage....................
So I think you will have to wait for another 2 months before you get an answer from IWC employee. Or they trow away the post that something frequently happening when post are a bit critical.
Beste Joes,
As a fellow country man and IWC collector, I feel that you deserve at least an answer from a fellow collector.
You must understand that this is a personal opinion, based on my own experience and what I have learned from IWC and from fellow collectors since 15 years. Your problems can be summarised as follows:
1. Original parts are no longer available at IWC.
2. Parts removed from a watch sent in for service or restoration, are kept by IWC.
3. Restoration is very expensive.
Let me try to address these points one by one.
ad 1. The spare parts you are hoping for belong to a watch of which the production stopped about 4 decades ago. These parts were not produced by IWC but bought from outside. When the production stopped, the IWC factory was of course the source where the main stock was kept of spare parts but it was also the place where all of the watches came for service. To phrase it differently: they ran out of stock at IWC. But not out of stock at local watch shops scattered over Europe. This Forum has members who can help you out : please read the story of our country man Mark Levinson on the twin pocket watches.
ad 2. The reason that IWC keeps the removed parts from your watch is based on their fear that they show up again on the market where they could be sold as genuine, rare IWC parts, while they are often worn oxydated and non-original IWC. These removed parts are immediately destroyed.
ad 3. The price for restoration is often higher as the market value of the vintage watch. This is absolutely true. But the restoration jobs shown on this Forum many times are amazing and outstanding, not comparable to average restoration elsewhere. Some collectors call it a Spa-treatment.
If you conclude that IWC is not so interested anymore in its heritage, I believe that you are right for a part, but for those collectors who will demand the utmost, IWC can provide it still if parts are in stock, although for a high price.
The 3 points we are talking about are well known to collectors and all of us have experienced a learning curve. It is a pitty that many AD's never mention our Forum as a place where knowledge and experience is shared for problems as you describe. You already found your way to South Germany, but if you had not, many of us could have adviced you on these matters.
Kind regards,
Adrian,
(alwaysiwc).
Dear IWC-Friends
Normally I do not comment threads of this style, I do it this time just to give an impression of the cost to restore a watch.
Everybody could do it by its own, when he has enough time. In the factorey it has to be done in approx 12 hours (of worktime)!
To sumamrize:
In Switzerland the "labor cost", with the ovrehead and the workplace, is charged by about €1000 a day (or about €120 per hour). This is mostly independent if you bring your car to a garage for service or ask an engineer for software changes, or a watch maker to repair a watch. (OK there may be some differences but if you calculate with €100 or €150 per hour does not realy affect the total, the main 1'xxx resists for a restoration)
If you think you can put to parts a movement, clean all the parts put it together to see if it runs, if not find or adjust the bad parts, clean again the parts, put together again, oil the movement correctly, control the accuracy in various positions, clean the case, repolish or brush the case, correctly set the hands to the movement, put into the case the movement again ....
In less that 12 hours, you can do it by yourself. (OK, maybe you don't have the experience)
It is the same as repairing a PC, Most people buy a new one when there are problems, because the cost to find out what is wrong, fixing the problem and reinstalling the OS takes more time is costs more than new PC you buy in the discounter. OK maybe when you have a more sofisticated PC, it makes sence to repair it.
The same with an IWC. You can get it repaired by the factory.
A cheap PC you bring to your friend trying out to fix it, the same with a cheap watch (or not so valuable vintage piece), you can bring it to the watchmaker at the corner, maybe he can fix (oil) it, and it runs for an other 6 Month....
When you have many old watches, maybe you do not want to ear every watch, so it is also no need to have repaired every watch, you just love it to collect it, and keep it in the state you got the watch.
Kind regards
Ralph
Thank you Adrian and Ralph for your answers. Besides your accurate answers, I only can add that there are few companies that keep that long a stock of old parts as IWC does. Indeed unfortunatly some parts can run out of stock. Also for watches +50 years old. I know that for some watches IWC made some new replacement parts when they ran out of stock. They can not do this for parts that were made by third companies in casu the hands. So making a statement that IWC does not make an effort to maintain its heritage is not correct. I hope we can conclude this discussion and help Spongyspong with his initial question about the cal89. Thank you.
On that topic, I am not sure the crown is not original, I have seen cal 89 with a similar crown.
Dear IWC owners,
I am also on the search for a crown that fits the cal89 from 1947.
No luck so far.
@Joes What is that company in Germany that has IWC parts?
Thank you
Best regards,
Radu
