I recently serviced this vintage Seiko 6105-8000 diver for a ClockSavant customer. He is a very experienced collector who “gets it” and as we will see here, clean on the outside does not mean clean on the inside. The watch was sold as serviced. From the perspective of what you see from the outside and the movement as-seen with the case back removed but not disassembled, the watch was visually very clean. Despite looking so nice, it completely stopped working soon after purchase. Let’s have a look inside. First, we see a large amount of cotton fiber cleaning material stuffed inside the movement, some failed attempt at cleaning excess oil perhaps. Next we see hair wrapped around the escape wheel, excess oil and grease in arbitrary areas on the plate often indicative of the movement having been dunked in cleaning fluid without disassembly and rinsed in oil. We see a broken dial spacer ring that was improperly installed, dirt underneath plates, and the ever-present “freshly serviced” filthy mainspring. Under the weight of all of this poor work, the watch collapsed and stopped running— no power at all made its way to the balance. The watch is now running nicely after being fully serviced and is a beautiful example of the 6105-8000 diver.
