Maintenance is obviously important for any mechanical object be it cars, bikes, guns, or watches. While manufacturer service, in my experience, tends to cost 20% more than your local watchmaker, I recommend that any fine timepiece be taken back to Switzerland for their maintenance. Here is some Patek Philippe Propaganda about their overhaul service with the service prices below. Patek's prices are slightly more expensive than other brands but only by about 25%, except for the fact that they do not include polishing which is standard with most brands. Service cost is really something that should be strongly considered when buying a watch, a moon phase, although not particularly useful, can add to the cost of service greatly (as I so found out after having my Glashutte serviced).
The short version ~8 min (Available in 720 HD)
The long version with Thierry Stern ~17min (Available in 720 HD)
Since I fell in love with watches, I have been amazed at the wealth of beautiful videos about watches available online. At the same time I have been amazed at how difficult they are to find. I will be periodically posting some of the best videos I find about watches. This first one is a how it's made video (in two parts and in 1080 HD) about the Panerai Caliber P.9000 and the Luminor Marina 44mm that uses the movement.
I think this video is extremely interesting but also speaks to how watches are manufactured now. With the exception of extremely fine watches (above 20,000 USD retail usually), fine watches are largely made by machines with human-machine intervention. Panerai perhaps isn't the best example of handmade watches but future videos will be show more of that.
