IWC Tuning Fork Watches

I saw the recent thread on collecting vintage IWC quartz, which made me wonder about the merits of IWC tuning fork watches. I quite like hummers on a certain level and have a few Accutrons, along with an F300. From past experience most watchmakers struggle to service or repair them, however there are one or two dedicated specialists around and I ended up sending the F300 out to Bulgaria for a service.

IWC tuning fork watches appear to be relatively expensive, compared to other brands and I don't know to what degree their movements differ from others. I'd be curious to know how others feel about them, either in terms of collectability or for regular usage?

As far as I know, they are the same ESA 9162/9164 movement as the F300, just with different plating/finishes.
From my experience with F300s, they chew through batteries, and main problems are worn index wheels, fragile teeth on the calendar discs, and coil modules need replacement. Good news is if you have spares, they are simple enough to repair yourself.

The IWC tuning fork watches were the first electronic watches for IWC.
At that time IWC had only experience in mechanical watches and the president of IWC Hans Ernst Homberger as well as the CEO Otto Heller ( data from David Seyffer) hesitated to invest in the new technology. So they had to buy everything from outside except the case. As most of the cases were in gold, the total sum of an IWC hummer was relatively high.
Regards,
Adrian,
(alwaysiwc)

I quite like my two little bees. Of course, the design is not really modern in todays view but rather retro-like. But that actually makes the difference for me.
IWC does also offer complete service for these watches but it is not really cheap. The assembling and tuning are more complex than for a standard Swiss anchor escapement. In addition, the battery consumption is quite substantial and you need to change the battery about once a year. That does not change my pleasure wearing them, though.