No More Watch Gang-the Vaer and Lucky Watch Repair

I've been reading about Vaer watches for some time now. I like their origin story, a couple of guys in Venice deciding to make an inexpensive quality watch here in the good ol' USA. I had my eye on their S5 watch, which I eventually bought for my son on his graduation.

It's a good, solid feeling watch, and I still may get one for myself.

I was at a watch show at Chelsea Market in New York last year, and I met some of the Vaer people. I told them about the watch I'd bought my son, and they gave me a bag, which was nice. They had a few watches for sale, but they didn't have the one that I wanted, the D5 USA Tropic. If they had had one, I'd have pulled the trigger.

It's an expensive watch for me, though, currently $595 on their website. I haven't ever spent that much money for a watch.

So for this last year, I've checked eBay on a somewhat regular basis to see if one pops up. Since I'm not part of Watch Gang anymore, I figured that if I could find one for about half, I'd pick it up.

And then I saw it. I still spent a little more than I had intended, but it had a second band along with this tan one, and came with it's original box and all of it's papers. It was originally purchased in March of 2021, and was in really great shape. I didn't care for the band color, but the band was actually pretty new, and it came with a khaki nylon strap as well. 

I found an Ottoody Strap on Amazon for about $20, and switched it for the tan band it had come with. The band is black leather, and with off-white stitching, matching the color scheme of the D5 Tropic better, I thought, and it looked really good on my arm. The watch has a 39mm face, which is probably the best size for my arm, and a really cool domed sapphire crystal, (pretty much the same size as my Wolbrook Skindiver), and it sits comfortably on my wrist. There are no sharp edges, and though it has some heft, it doesn't feel bulky.

After wearing the watch for a few days, I was taking it off to go swimming, and dropped it on a concrete locker room floor. The Vaer made a crunching sound when it hit the ground that I had never heard from a watch before, and I was sure that I'd cracked the crystal. But I picked it up, looked it over, and it looked fine. It was running, I didn't see any scratches or cracks, and I thought that I had gotten lucky. But an hour or so later, it stopped. 

I tried to get it started again, but it was a no go, and I realized that I'd spent a bunch of money on a watch that I broke in less than a week. I can count the amount of watches I've broken over the years on one hand, so this was a bit surprising.

Still, the movement is a Miyota 9039, a well known, well liked, common movement that can be bought online for around $100. I figured that if the whole movement had to be changed out, the watch would come up to the price of a brand new one-not really what I was looking for. I also thought that maybe the Vaer people would be able to help me out and get a new movement for less, if that's what was needed. So I emailed Vaer about my watch.

Surprisingly, since it was the second week of December, Evan-Austin at Vaer got right back to me, asking for more details. The eBay seller had sent me his receipt, so I gave the pertinent facts-that I totally understood that the warranty didn't apply on watches bought on eBay, that the person I bought it from sent me his receipt and order number, and that I dropped it on concrete. I asked if I should just take it to my guy and have him take a look.

More surprisingly, I got another response the next day. It was signed from Ryan Torres, one of the Vaer founders, and it said to take it to my guy for an estimate, then let the Vaer people know, and they'd tell me if they thought they could do it for less. In a follow-up email, Evan-Austin gave me the information if I wanted to send it back to them, but warned of a 3-4 week turnaround.

So I took my watch to Lucky Watch here in Ventura. I've had Paul, the owner replace several watch batteries over the years, but more importantly, he's replaced the quartz movement of an 80's era Seiko that my mom had bought me, and a got a 20 year old Seiko automatic dive watch running for me, with both repairs under $100 each. He won't fix everything-the Beltex of a few posts back comes to mind-but I thought he could handle this one.

Red Date

I took it to Lucky Watch on Monday. He opened it up and told me the problem, but Paul's accent is pretty thick and I'm not sure what he said-it could have been 'main spring,' or it could have been something else, and then said that he could have it back to me by Wednesday, and it would cost less than $100. That sounded good, so I told him okay. I figured there was no way the Vaer people were going to charge less, and the turnaround would be no where near as fast. Plus I'd have had to get the packaging to mail the watch to them. 

When I picked up the watch two days later, Paul's advice was, "Do not drop on concrete." It's been running great ever since. 

I do have one complaint about the watch, and it is a minor one. The date is in the 6 o'clock position, without any magnification on it. It's also a black dial with cream numbers, like the rest of the face-except every four days when the date is red. I'm not sure why it's every four days, and with the cream on black numbers, the date blends into the face. Vaer people, if you happen to read this, a magnification over the date would really make this watch pop. It's a minor quibble, and obviously not enough to prevent me from wearing the watch.

One more interesting side note-Vaer makes a D7 Tropic, which to my eye looks the same except for "Swiss Made" on the bottom of the dial instead of "American Assembly." Instead of the Miyota movement, it has a Sellita SW-200 movement. The specs of the movements are the same, but the Swiss watch is $200 more.

I'll stick with the USA assembled, Japanese movement.