IWC Mark XII advice needed

Hi all,

I recently inherited an IWC Mark XII (ref. 3241, 1998) together with a few other watches. 
It comes with box, papers and the original beads-of-rice bracelet. This one had been sitting in a safe for years and currently does not run. A part of the tritium triangle at 12 has chipped off and probably found its way through the date window into the movement.

I showed it to an known independent watchmaker here in Germany. He said the watch appears to have suffered some kind of shock damage. He could service the movement, but he cannot source the correct IWC crown and tube parts.

He also said that a proper case refinish has to go together with a proper water-resistance service, so because he cannot replace the necessary crown/tube parts, he would not refinish the case either.

For the dial, his suggestion was to relume all dial indices in a color matched as closely as possible to the aged tritium in the hands, using a kind of custom template/matrix to restore the original shapes. The hands themselves would only be stabilized from the bottom, not relumed. Total cost for movement service and this dial work would be around EUR 1,300.

I am a bit torn. Sending it to IWC would probably mean losing the original tritium dial and hands, but I assume I would get back something close to a like-new watch. On the other hand, that would obviously take away a lot of the watch’s original character.

I do not necessarily want to sell it, but I am considering it if repairing it properly no longer makes much sense compared to current market value. If anyone here has had a Mark XII serviced by IWC recently, I would also be very interested in hearing what it cost, or what you think IWC would likely charge in a case like this.

What would you do?

Hello Muenster90

I personally would send it to IWC Schaffhausen for a complete service. What I did with the pocket watch of my great-grandfather was, that I send it to full service but I told them that they let the originall dial (with a fine haircrack) as it is, and they did.

Best

Andreas

Thanks a lot for your reply, I really appreciate it.

In principle I would also prefer the IWC route, but what makes me hesitant is that I have read multiple times that IWC may refuse to service watches with visibly damaged or crumbling tritium unless the dial and hands are replaced. That seems to be the concern especially once the lume has already started to chip or flake, as it has on mine.

In itself I could probably live with that, but not if the total cost then ends up somewhere around EUR 2,000–3,000 or so, which would already be more than half the market value of the watch.