Customer Reviews

Colibri Classical Mechanical Skeleton Pocket Watch 17 Jewels with Easy to Read Numbers PWS095809X

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this watch as a birthday present for my boyfriend, knowing it was something he wanted more than needed. He absolutely loved it, he wears it often and makes it a point to show it to our friends and family. He even decided that it would be the perfect start to a new collection. It was a great choice for us as he loves exposed gears and working parts. The only thing that could have made it better would have been an engraved personal message, but there didn't appear to be a good spot for that. Not a big deal though.

It was a gift from a company I used to work at. I don't have any receipt. It ran very fast -- fifteen to twenty minutes a day. And sometimes stopped inexplicably -- usually after pulling out the stem to wind or set. It would mysteriously start back up later. Plus, it's very small. In my opinion it is a lady's watch. It spends it's time now (pun intended) in a junk drawer. When it stopped working for good, I tossed it out.

It did get me interested in mechanical pocket watches and I have since acquired for myself a Charles Hubert and it keeps accurate time to less than a minute drift per day! Skeletonized mechanical watches are very interesting -- you can see the movement. Before quartz movements, these were state of the art little machines.

I received this watch for Christmas. Admittedly, it is a beautiful watch to look at and drew many comments. However, by September or so, every hinge on the watch was loose, and by the end of October the watch no longer kept time accurately when wound. It will stop running for no apparent reason when fully or partially wound. The watch has not been subjected to any extraordinary wear. It was kept it in my pocket and looked at it a few times a day. It was allowed to run down occasionally, but it was not wound too tightly or adjusted all that often. There was no dropping or other noticeable impact that caused it to stop and it certainly never went through a washer or dryer. If you have ever been to a watch repair person, you know that the cost of having a mechanical watch repaired is likely to be as much or more than you would pay for this watch. This watch is not recommended.

For the record, I paid less for mine than Amazon is selling them for; I would not pay Amazon's price for this watch. For what *I* paid for it, it's decent quality. I've had a few pocket watches over the years that are similar quality for $30-ish.

Be "warned"; the visible skeleton-works look super cool, but makes the hands harder to see against the face. If your eyesight is below average, this watch will be difficult for you to read.

I don't expect the chain to have a very long life span, but I have the chain from another watch that I can use if/when this one breaks.

For those of you new to mechanical watches (ones that need to be wound) it is important to wind them ONLY once a day at the same time every day-- maybe not the exact hour of the day, but stick to winding it the same general time.

This is not my first pocket watch, so I knew to look for this-- This watch (and probably other Colibri watches) have an adjustment lever if the watch is running fast or slow. Since this model has the view window on the back, you can see it easily-- on the mainspring, you will see a small silver lever with two gold dots on it. The lever is probably half a centimeter or so. That is the adjustment lever. "Faster" and "Slower" are not marked on this watch, but on my antique pocketwatch that is marked, faster is to the left and slower is to the right. You might prefer to take it to a watch expert to open the back and make the adjustment, but it can be done. I don't think that I would mess with it unless the watch is more than a couple minutes off a day. At just a minute or two, I would just make setting it to my computer clock a part of winding it in the morning

[EDITED April 4th, 2011]: I've now had it a month, and it is still keeping great time at about three minutes a week fast. If you have never owned a mechanical watch (one that needs winding) you need to be aware that because they are more influenced by weather, temperature, barometric pressure, etc than quartz watches, it's harder for them to keep perfect time. Because of this, mechanical watches ARE ADJUSTABLE, as I mentioned in my original review.

I love this watch. I've had it for abt 10 years and the only problem that I've had was that it needed to be cleaned and after a few years the back glass came off, but an almost microscopic dot of super glue fixed that once and for all..it's been a pretty good watch

This is a nice looking watch which seems to keep good time. The cover latch feels cheap, however, and I think the "engraving" is rather chintzy too.