Just curious, why would people want to repair their watches when they can buy watches cheaply everywhere?
I suspect the watch needing repair is not a watch you can buy anywhere...after a few decades a mechanical watch may need some maintenance, or a person might want to replace the glass, or spring, or something. There are millions of heirloom timepieces around, would you toss a 100-year-old watch in favor of cheap digital nonsense? You might be throwing away a part of your family heritage! a friend has a clock that’s been with his family for generations (it’s at least 200 years old), he takes it to the watchmaker every year to make sure it stays functional.
Something you could buy for a few bucks anywhere certainly gets tossed. However...
Yesterday I finished overhauling a watch YOU would throw out..old beat up looking Hamilton from 1938. A family treasure.. because..
The watch jumped into Normandy on D-Day with its owner. BOTH wounded at Bastogne (owner shrapnet...watch busted crystal)
It went with the owner from the Pusan Perimeter to the 38th parallel. In the 1960’s the watch was worn to Vietnam by the son of the original owner. Another generation wore the watch to Desert Storm. Last month the watch came home safely from Afghanistan and then to me for service.
These are the millions of watches, each with a deep history with an individual or generations of a single family.