100+ No BS Watch Tips: For Watch Enthusiasts & Salespeople

Highly recommend this book to anyone looking to know more about the industry or get into the industry. Some very useful and well presented information for people who have no knowledge at all Who can easily go quite in depth with this book. The manner in which it’s written is really well done and makes enjoyable to read! Also you can flick to any page in this book and pretty much lewrn something new.

This is a great book for anyone who wants to know more about how their watch works and how to keep it in good shape. Written by a watchmaker it's got loads of interesting nuggets of info and insights, which none of my other watch books cover. Highly recommended whether this is the first or fiftieth watch book on your shelves!

Terrific book if you have an interest in watchmaking and the technical aspect of horology, funny too!

The book is a good introductory text about mechanical wrist watches and the respective industry.

Easy to dip in and out of, and full of 'no BS' comments and tips from the watch world. A really good bed side table or travel book!

A bit light weight- much of the content is common sense.

A really enjoyable read. Does what it says on the tin. If you have any interest at all on watches you will Love it

Highly recommended for all the watch enthusiasts/experts/newbies/old-timers alike! Heaps of useful information served in a very accessible and engaging manner.

Consigliato a chi vuole conoscere od a persone esperienti che vogliono saperne di più sul mestiere dell'orologiaio.

I had a blast reading Anthony L's “100+ No BS Watch Tips for Watch Enthusiasts & Salespeople.” If the title even just catches your eye that's enough to make it worth reading, both for the information and the fun. I'm brand new to the world of watches but I gather at the abstract level watchmakers and enthusiasts alike “appreciate the historic, technical, intellectual, aesthetic, amusing and useful qualities of a tiny machine that must also serve a practical purpose throughout the day” (from George Daniels's “Watchmaking, 2011). But at the concrete level there's the day-to-day of learning a trade, scuffling for work, gaining experience, making a living working as an employee or for yourself by servicing watches and interacting with customers as a profession. That's the perspective on offer here. It's a very personal account the author's views and experience after many years at the bench. There's quite a bit of Anthony L's peeves about interacting with customers who have unreasonable or ill-considered expectations and salespeople who, he believes, may not respect the craftsmanship of the person who understands and fully appreciates the watch inside the watch and can maintain it. You'll find lots of quotations and words of wisdom that have inspired him or illustrate a point he's trying to make. But it's a stated goal of the author's to write an enjoyable book: “Take a deep breath and relax. Have a drink. Treat this like a fun read. The watchmaking world is complicated and tense as it is. You won't learn anything if you don't loosen up.” This he has accomplished I think, kind of in the manner of Anthony Bourdain's “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly” (2000). Anthony L writes of adventures in the horologic underbelly, to paraphrase Bourdain's subtitle, with advice to match, analogous to “if there are seafood frittatas on a Sunday brunch menu stay away because it's likely to be the odd bits left over from Friday's catch.” At the beginning of the book there's a neat little Venn diagram of the set of terms Fast, Cheap, and Good, Tip #5. No surprise, you can't have all three. If you'd like to do a home-based check of your mechanical watch's timekeeping there's Tip #32, a template and instructions to do that. There's technical information only a watchmaker would use but that's interesting to an enthusiast anyway, like the table “Rolex Lubrications and What They're For” on various types of oils. There's actually a fair amount of Rolex information in the book. There's advice on how not to piss off the watchmaker whose help you need. There's a lot of advice on the practicalities of becoming a watchmaker if that's something you want to do, and practical advice for enthusiasts in what I'm starting to think is a domain full of “experts,” braggarts, and blowhards, like Tip #93, Be Careful Who You Take Your Watchmaking Advice From. All in all a useful and enjoyable book.

The book is very informative and an eye-opener of the watch repair industry. As mentioned by the author, it’s good reading for the watch maker, watch repairer, enthusiasts, hobbyists, or for those who’s into the love of horology. The only negative is the manufacturing of the book itself. The pages are glued to the paper back and comes off easily. Still, it’s a good book.

Absolutely brilliant! I love this book. It's really inspiring and motivating, plus I have learned a lot. Thanks Anthony!

I very much loved this book. Would recommend to everyone no matter if you are just about to buy your first watch of your dreams or want to inform yourself about watches. I know this, would have come handy to have a book like this on the market earlier ;)