Servicing the Hobart community for over three decades – the Watch Repair Shop will get your watch working again in no time.
Our Interview
Originally published 6 August 2019.
Heading up the stairs at 105 Liverpool Street you will find The Watch Repair Shop, a gem of a business run by the one and only Craig (whose birthday it was when we visited?).
He has owned this shop for going on 33 years – we even saw the proof of an old photo from the 80s of a young Craig working away at the very same desk.
‘I often have people come in who say that they used to come in with their mother. Two or sometimes three generations of people have been coming here’.
We wanted to test Craig’s watch⌚️ knowledge, so we bought in an old and broken watch from home. It took only a few minutes to fix it, an old nursing watch from the 60s. It turns out there is a machine that tests the watch to see if it is counting time correctly, called the Timegrapher. This watch was gaining 100 seconds a day (what a waste of time)! Craig promptly fixed it up for us though.
There are all sorts of excellent time pieces and parts in the Watch Repair Shop. ‘You never know when you might need a piece. Just the other day I spent 5 hours looking for a part for a watch I was fixing. Sure enough, I found it. You wouldn’t have been able to buy that part anymore so that’s why I hold onto everything’.
How did you come to be in the watch business?
‘My uncle owned a jewellery shop in Cat & Fiddle when I was young and I started hanging out there helping him out. Then when I was 16, I was offered an apprenticeship which I took and have been refining my skills ever since’, said Craig.
What is the oldest watch that has been bought into your shop?
‘About 150 years old. I prefer the older watches to be honest. They were made so well. It is quite a thing now for people to get their grandfathers or dad’s watch repaired and start wearing it’.
And the brand of watch that Craig loves the most? ‘I love Certina watches. I get very excited when I see one of these walk through the door’.