InDebtButOnTime
3548
There's always the possibility that you could end up trading one flaw for a different one if you send it in, even though everyone involved would be highly skilled. My personal example was
with my Bathyscaphe although it was functional rather than visual or cosmetic. My watch had an operational issue with the crown. After unscrewing it and pulling it out gently you could not access the winding position. Instead it would go directly to the hand setting detent. When you pushed it back in you could then access the winding position before screwing it back in. From there you could pull it back out slightly to access the date change position. So it didn't work properly but there was a work around. When I first received the watch and before I noticed this issue I took it to my watchmaker. He liked it, put it on his timing machine and commented that he'd never seen a watch this accurate. In all positions it was perfection. As is common for me with a new watch I wore it continuously for a couple of weeks but when I finally let it sit long enough to stop I noticed the problem and took it back to him to ask what he thought I should do. He was conflicted and thought this was very unfortunate because he thought there would be a good chance it could come back fixed but with less accurate
timing than before. He said it would probably go to New Jersey and that they are very good but might not return it in the same running condition that the factory was capable of doing. He was 100% correct. It took two trips back to New Jersey for them to understand the problem (to actually carefully read our description of the issue that accompanied the watch?) but on the 2nd attempt they did replace the crown assembly and fix the issue. However the watch went from Spring Drive accurate to +3 seconds per day. I was upset before and upset later. Just a different version of upset. Sometimes chasing better can still prevent perfection and this can also apply to cosmetic/visual imperfections. The odds would probably be in your favor if you sent it in but the result still might not be perfection. A new flaw might arise that could also be cosmetic or it could be functional if significant
disassembly and reassembly is required.