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Local Watch Repair Company Still Ticking

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  • Local Watch Repair Company Still Ticking

    LOCAL WATCH REPAIR COMPANY STILL TICKING
    Dave Hall

    Windsor Star
    Aug 19 2008
    Canada

    A diamond-setter since he started his apprenticeship at the age of
    12 in Istanbul, Harry Dokmecian is still working 57 years later in
    a small shop on Park Street West.

    Owner of Bert Weeks Jewellers, a long-established downtown business
    which still bears the late Windsor mayor's name, Dokmecian can still
    be found behind the counter or in his small workshop at the back of
    the store six days a week.

    "What else would I do? Where else would I go?" said Dokmecian, an
    Armenian who left Turkey with his mother and brother in 1955 and moved
    to Buenos Aires, Argentina. "This is what I know and I plan to be here
    a while yet because my health, knock on wood, is still pretty good."

    Dokmecian, whose father died when he was eight, said his family left
    Turkey because of longstanding conflicts between Turks and Armenians
    and because "it was tough for us to earn a living so we moved to
    Argentina."

    While learning to speak Spanish, Dokmecian opened his own store in
    Buenos Aires and soon added watch-making to his repertoire of skills.

    "It was a good living," said Dokmecian.

    But after 16 years in Argentina, Dokmecian, his wife Arnalda and
    mother decided to move to Canada to be closer to relatives who lived
    in Michigan.

    "We stayed at the old Norton Palmer for three or four days before
    finding a small apartment," said Dokmecian.

    It also didn't take him long to find Weeks Jewellers, which was
    then located on Ouellette Avenue, and armed with a Spanish-English
    dictionary, he talked himself into an interview.

    "I had to keep looking up the different words during the interview
    but it worked and I started working for Mr. Weeks in 1971," said
    Dokmecian. "I repaired watches of all kinds from new ones to antiques."

    After three years, he left Weeks and started working at Meyers
    Jewellers in Detroit where he repaired Accutron watches. But when
    Weeks retired in 1980, Dokmecian took the opportunity to become his
    own boss again and took over the store.

    Nine years later, he moved the business around the corner onto Park
    Street where it's been ever since.

    Thirty years ago, there were more than a dozen jewellers downtown
    but now only a handful remain including Weeks, G&G Jewelery, Ian
    Henderson Jeweller and Gemologist and Shanfield-Meyers.

    Some have closed while others have relocated elsewhere in the city.

    "At times, it's been difficult but we had a good clientele who kept
    coming back and we have a good name," said Dokmecian. "Downtown is
    not too good for business right now but I'm still here.

    "And I've always believed that if you're not lazy, you'll always have
    bread on your table."

    Dokmecian said his only concession to age is that he now uses a
    jeweller's magnifier because his eyesight isn't what is used to be
    after decades of working with intricate designs and small timepieces.

    "I love to fix old timepieces. I've worked on antique watches and
    clocks from the 1800s but it's getting harder to find parts because
    most of the old watchmakers from around here are either retired or
    they've passed away," said Dokmecian.

    His workshop area features a four-tonne safe which cost him $1,100
    to move when he switched locations, a gold-rolling machine as well as
    gold-plating machines most of which "you can't find anywhere anymore."
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