Does anyone know a watchmaker who can help me with a Tudor 390?

[digitallightweight]

Hello,

I am a relatively new watch enthusiast. I have been collecting vintage pieces and the occasional cheap quartz beater for a few years now. This summer, my parents were cleaning their house and came across a box with some of my grandfather's things. Before moving stuff to a garage sale they had me come over and take a look to see what was worth keeping in the family and if there was anything nice worth fixing up for either me or my brother. In the box was a circa ~1950's watch retailed by the Canadian department store Eaton's. As some of you may know Rolex provided moments and cases for these watches in that period.

The watch is branded Solar Aqua and is essentially a Tudor Oyster Prince with a different name on the dial. I had heard of these watches before so I knew what I had. Being as delicate as I could I picked up the watch and gave it a small wind. It kicked to life and kept ticking admirably. That's some Rolex quality! Knowing that it had sat for over half a decade and that it probably had not been serviced for 10 years prior to that I did some digging to find a local watchmaker that might be able to give it a once over.

I found an awesome guy through a separate watch forum. Unfortunately, the news once he got the caseback off, was not so happy. One of the screws that hold the winding stem in the case had suffered some fatigue over the years and snapped. As well we noticed a lot of wear on the mainspring barrel (he could kinda move it up and down a fair bit with the screwdriver.)

He has experience working on the movement but says that due to the declining availability of parts, the unknown state of the components deeper in the movement (we did not remove any of the bridges to get a closer look), and the fiddly nature of the watch (in particular the autowinding module added by rolex/tudor). He would not be comfortable working on the watch for me.

I was wondering if there were any watchmakers here who could help me restore this beautiful piece of mid-century design and engineering? Or if you folks have any recommendations for watchmakers who you know the ability, capacity, and parts network required to fix it up for me. There is a watchmaker about 4 hours north of me that I spoke to on the phone. He seems confident that he can work on it but I don't think that he knows anything about this particular movement. He also wanted me to drive the watch to him so he can look at it before deciding if he will accept it. If I could find someone who knows what they were getting into that was confident they could help I would rather ship the watch than potentially waste 8 hours driving to see someone who then realizes they are in over their head.

Thank you for taking the time to read my LONG post and for any advice that you might have. Any info on the Tudor 390 movement is very helpful to me. Do you have a watch with the same movement? Is it reliable? Where do you source parts? How long have you had it? Where did you get it? Which models of watches used the movement? Alternatively, if this movement is just an absolute lost cause do you know of any movements with the same dimensions? I would be open to doing a movement swap to keep the watch alive but with a different heart.

Cheers,
Lightweight

[Nunez. Jacob]

los angeles watch works

[Tools]

The Solar Aqua was a store branding by the Eaton Corporation as you say.

Depending on the year they used Felsa, Gruen/Aegler, or later ETA movements. If it has the Tudor movement, then it is quite a find, although mostly because of its uniqueness as it isn't a popular size. It's a stretch to call it a "Rolex" watch.

Don't know a lot of Canadian watchmakers who work on the older movements. In the USA there are some specialists who do tackle Rolex products, such as Bob Ridley in Texas, and his son Phillip in Arizona may have some experience in this area.

Google them and give them a call. They will talk your ear off and if they can't help, perhaps they can give you some direction for a watchmaker who tackles these older pieces.

[digitallightweight]

Thanks for the tip! Have you had them work on a similar movement for you in the past?

cheers!

[Dan S]

Tudor 390? Send out some emails to watchmakers asking them if they are masochists. ;-)

[linesiders]

LAWW as mentioned, Bob Ridley (Texas) or Phillip Ridley (Arizona), both do them.