The Master Wristwatch Thread

[HAC]

Following in your footsteps, here are my "pride and joy" watches that will always stay in the collection, others will come and go, but these are permanent..

(especially this one - this is probably the most comfortable and accurate (for a mechanical) watch I own, good for juts about any occasion, I call it the "stealth Rolex" as it has a lot less flash that most of the other Rolex models.)

Ref 114270, Explorer I, Caliber 3130, 31 J automatic, nice bit of history with the Explorer I, too. Tenzing Norgay wore the orginal model, on the first ascent of Everest. That model, the ref 6350, is the grandaddy of this ref 114270. Picked this one up new, in 2006.





1940's Omega 30T2 manual wind - from  the "International" line:



Another Omega, F300, ESA 9164 tuning fork movement:



Another Omega - bumper auto Seamaster:



And another hummer, Logines Ultronic, ESA 9164 movement:


Yet another hummer  Accutron 218 RR (1973) in a 14K gold case.




Cheers
Harold

[rogue_designer]

Very pretty collection Harold. I didn't realize so many people made hummers.  And that bumper-wind Omega is just classic. I love it.

That reminds me I need to get back on task restoring my omega... and getting the Accutron into the shop. I wish they were open longer hours.

[K. D. R. Tempus]

Re: watch porn

...I'll be in my bunk.

[SalieriAAX]

I posted this a while ago in another topic but I never did get around to posting it here - 1920s Illinois 15 Jewel. Keeps great time, too.

[HAC]

          nice beginner rolex

The "entry" Rolexes are the Air King models.
 The reason I chose the 114270, is that it's less flashy than the Datejusts, and not as obvious as a Submariner.  As for Bond, there was an analysis  by "Watch Time" magazineof the Feming novles to see if it could be determined what Rolex Bond wore (movies aside) and it was determined that it was a Ref 1016 Explorer I, based on the watch that Ian Fleming wore..
As far as "beginner" look at the 2008 UK price list.  The Explorer I is the the same ranges as the Date, Datejust, and non-date Submariner..

Air King (stainless)                  ref 114200  £2,160
Explorer 1 (staimless)              ref 114270  £2,600
Submariner (no date, stainless) ref 14060M £2,790
Submariner (date stainless)      ref 16610   £3,090
Datejust (stainless)                ref 116200  £2,840
Date (stainless)                     ref 115200  £2,700


Cheers
Harold

[HAC]

Nah.. too flashy, and too big for me..   

Cheers
Harold

[Sir Nikolas Vendigroth]

here,s a topic?
anygood sites for gog tpye gears?
not to big 1"dia.

thanks

Some punctuation would help that post no end...

[Sir Nikolas Vendigroth]

so sorry:

   Will again try , to do better.

As I was asking although not very well,I need some larger watch gears.

as I indeed , misspelled , the word is COG .

  Any ideas would be helpful.


  thank to all,    Moy

For larger gears, your best bet is to look in clock movements, not watches 

[Silkstone]

*points* I have a Westclox broken too! If you do pry off the back and realize there's a better way to go around it, lemme know  Congrats on the 50cents find! :O

[HorseOnStilts]

A $20 quartz watch I got at a Wal-Mart about a year and a half ago. I like it, but the quality's terrible, obviously.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Opened. The skull isn't really my style, I'd like to put something else there someday.
There's a mirror on the inside, it's pretty scratched up and dented. I'd like to replace that with something else too.


The other side of the watch part.


The "leather" strap is pretty much ruined at this point. I may try to make one in the same style out of real leather sometime.

[Zwack]

My daughter's boyfriend recently brought me a watch he had bought at a flea market as he wanted to remove the movement from the case so that he could find out more about it.

I pulled the movement out for him, and showed him how to do it on that watch, and commented that it was a great find.

He'd paid $3 for a Hamilton 911 movement in good running condition, with a perfect dial, in a 14k gold filled case.

Even compared to the cheapest price I found on ebay for a broken movement, that was a bargain.

I need to find out which flea market he went to...

Z.

[deadsweetheart]

Hey anyone know if theres anyone thats good and gives fair prices in Baltimore on repairing wrist and pocketwatches?  everyone wants to charge me 160-250 to replace a balance staff on anything.

Oh on a side note i found the Fells Point flea market in baltimore a gentlman who had several pocket and wristwatches in runnign order and some of the pocketwatches were even the old keywind type and he was only chargeing 55 for them but woudlnt give me the name of a repair shop. the flea market is ocnea  month till october

[HAC]

Hey anyone know if theres anyone thats good and gives fair prices in Baltimore on repairing wrist and pocketwatches?  everyone wants to charge me 160-250 to replace a balance staff on anything.

Oh on a side note i found the Fells Point flea market in baltimore a gentlman who had several pocket and wristwatches in runnign order and some of the pocketwatches were even the old keywind type and he was only chargeing 55 for them but woudlnt give me the name of a repair shop. the flea market is ocnea  month till october

For a balance staff job, that's not an outrageous price. The real issue here is that its a very  time consuming job, in that one has to remove the upper and lower rollers (in a double roller escapement), in addition to the balance. (its pretty easy to mess up a roller jewel, don't ask how I know  ). Then you need to replace the staff, replace and align the rollers (in both the horizontal and vertical), and replace the balance. You may or may not ned to re-poise the balance after this step. If your lucky, the new staff is close enough to the length of the original staff, and you won't need to spend to much time polishing the staff ends to fit in the plate pivots. Then you need to ensure the endshake is correct. If not, well, that's more taime taken up. All of this assuems that a replacement staff is available, and that you don;t have to lathe one uip (and I know of VERY few watch repair people who will even attempt that anymore)

Cheers
Harold
 

[Abslomrob]

Learning to lathe a balance staff is fairly high on my list of things to learn; I just need to save up the money for a good quality set of turns.  I've got a fair number of watches that need balances, and every time I buy a donor, I end up wanting to fix that one too....

[deadsweetheart]

welli finally found someone who wont take an arm and a leg when redoinga  watch. Theres a Antique Clock and Watch shop in Ellicott City MD and theres a littel old man there whos been doing that for 60 years ,   right now hes replaceing a bow on a watch for me , the crystal, the hands , and a general oiling for 80 dollars .     He told me if i want a complete teardown and overhaul of a watch the cleaning of all the parts will be 130 plus whatever parts are needed and he apparently has ALOT of parts.  SO im guessing i can get most of my walthams and elgins fixed rather easily ,,however the swiss keywind watches may cost a bit more cause alot werent standardized.

[Verner]

Recently acquired - a "Guillaume" watch (back of movement marked X40FW)

Pics here:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Nadanova]

Absolutely stunning watch that.

[Tranzient Gallery]

I found something pretty in a job lot of scrap watches I picked up, I just received conformation letter saying that this wrist watch is....
'''According to the details included in your letter, I am pleased to announce you that you are the fortunate owner of a ZENITH vintage watch reference 3324396.
It has been produced at the Manufacture in Switzerland on sept 1927 s per our historical records. It embeds a ZENITH manufacture 12NSI.''
It is still in its solid sliver case!! 
 
Now it needs a bit of TLC I might just look in getting it repaired by Zenith (I dread to think how much it will cost) I will probably end up selling it as I need money for a house deposit, not that I really want to but needs must.

[Klaatuprime]

I figured I'd chime in and announce myself. I collect wristwatches. Mostly vintage with a few nice modern ones. I have a number of Accutrons with a bias toward 214s. I just picked up a an M6 RR approved, and I have an Astronaut and a SpaceView that were eBay acquisitions. I have a fourth 214 with a Roman numeral dial. I have a number of 218s also in various working conditions.

I have a Zodiac Oceanaire, an Oris BC3, and a Tissot PRS 516 in the way of modern Swiss watches, along with a half dozen inexpensive Chinese made autos and winders (I suppose I could argue about the internals of the Zodiac being Swiss).
At any given time I usually have maybe 30 running watches, the majority of them vintage. I'm currently wearing a "Hilton" two register chrono, which is apparently a re-branded Wakmann.
That kinda covers it. I'm just another casual collector.

[Drew P]

Hilton is a re-branded Wakmann?! Then I've got a excellent buy for $15-condition is pretty good and it keeps almost perfect time.I hope some time to use it in a custom made watch,after I'm done with the other million things I'm doing .

Anyone have any so-called Homage units? I've just found out about these and am curious.

[Klaatuprime]

Hilton is a re-branded Wakmann?! Then I've got a excellent buy for $15-condition is pretty good and it keeps almost perfect time.I hope some time to use it in a custom made watch,after I'm done with the other million things I'm doing .

Anyone have any so-called Homage units? I've just found out about these and am curious.

Some of the Hiltons chronos are re-branded Wakmanns. Hilton bought watches and branded them as their own. This is it.

I have a number of homage watches. They're for the most part Chinese movements in cases that look very similar to famous name watches. I'm currently wearing a Marina Militare branded watch with a Seagull GMT movement. It's pretty much a Panerai lookalike, and it runs rather well.
They're kind of nice as interim pieces until you decide whether or not you want the real thing.

[k-9]

well the wife got me a new watch for our anniversary it not as nice as some of your guys vintage one but i thought i would share here a link to it http://www.stuhrling.com/item.cfm?MainCatID=55&SubCatID=289&SSubCatID=167

i will post pic soon as i get to taking them

[anje572]

Maby some of you guys in here can help me In my grandfathers things we found a wristwatch named Hoverta (number printed on the back is 2986. and under the number 6 on the dial it says swiss). I'm trying to find out about this watch, but that is not easy. So far I found out that Hoverta was made by H.Hofner ltd, and that's it. It's an manuel wind up watch, and it seems to be in very good condition.

[Prof. Albrecht Von Taggërt]

Just got my watch back from cleaning /repair

We here (the site) figured it was around a 1937 Illinois mens watch 10k gold filled case, 17 jewels
Sadly the band is not the original.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If anyone can find or offer more info please do

[Drew P]

Do you have any images of the movement?