Let's See Your Watches! The Vintage Watch Thread.

[Shangas]

Ladies and gentlemen,

My railroad watch is ready for collection! A mere three weeks after I approved the servicing! I'm heading off soon, to collect it and bring it safely home. I never expected it to be back this quickly! It having a higher-quality movement, I expected this watch back another two weeks from today. Apparently, it didn't take as long to service as I thought it would!

Here we are, back from the watchmaker's:

 

[Atomic]

Bulova

I got this watch off ebay a while back. Its a great little watch, but I do lose about 2 minutes by the end of the day. The glass was replaced by a plastic piece, but other than that, its all good. Not bad for a $30 ebay score. I wear it the time as its more comfortable than a lot of my other watches.

 

[jamespowers]

Ladies and gentlemen,

My railroad watch is ready for collection! A mere three weeks after I approved the servicing! I'm heading off soon, to collect it and bring it safely home. I never expected it to be back this quickly! It having a higher-quality movement, I expected this watch back another two weeks from today. Apparently, it didn't take as long to service as I thought it would!

Here we are, back from the watchmaker's:

Is that a Ball Official standard that I am seeing there? Nice. Gold train and all. :eusa_clap

 

[jamespowers]

I got this watch off ebay a while back. Its a great little watch, but I do lose about 2 minutes by the end of the day. The glass was replaced by a plastic piece, but other than that, its all good. Not bad for a $30 ebay score. I wear it the time as its more comfortable than a lot of my other watches.

If you are feeling adventurous, You can pop the back off and speed it up so that it will not lose time. The lever will be above the balance and you need to move it very little to make the necessary change.
Those were nice watches back then. You did well. :eusa_clap

 

[Shangas]

Hi James,

Yes it's a ca. 1960 Ball-Record railroad pocket watch, made in Switzerland by the Ball Watch Co. It does have a gold wheeltrain! I never noticed that before! :eusa_clap It's a Canadian RR watch and it's currently keeping RR time. When my watchmaker gave it back to me, he wound it up and let me set the time on it. He joked that it ticked so loud that the neighbours would be able to hear it! Hahaha!

Personally the loud ticking doesn't bother me one bit. I like it.

 

[ScionPI2005]

I got this watch off ebay a while back. Its a great little watch, but I do lose about 2 minutes by the end of the day. The glass was replaced by a plastic piece, but other than that, its all good. Not bad for a $30 ebay score. I wear it the time as its more comfortable than a lot of my other watches.

I like that one. It shows some wear and use from over the years, but has held up well. You definitely got it for a good price.

 

[Shangas]

Hey Atomic. Has the watch been serviced recently? If not, that's probably the cause of the poor timekeeping.

Alternatively, if it has been serviced and just needs regulating (timekeeping adjustment), then, as James says, that's something you could probably do yourself. I do it to my pocket watches to ensure they keep accurate time. You'll need to remove the caseback and use something small (like a thumb-tack/push-pin) to nudge the regulator needle either faster or slower, to set the time.

You only need to move the regulator a TINY amount at a time, though. A milimeter each time is plenty.

 

[Atomic]

I don't think the watch had been serviced, where is a good place to take a watch like this? Some really trusted online company?

Thanks,
Anthony

 

[jamespowers]

I don't think the watch had been serviced, where is a good place to take a watch like this? Some really trusted online company?

Thanks,
Anthony

Well, a few of us here have used Paul's watch repair in Sacramento, CA.
www.paulswatchandclockrepair.com
I have two of my pocketwatches there now. He is reliable and has the parts you might need. For prices, refer to his services page. Likely you will just need a $55 cleaning.

 

[Aureliano]

Great and grandfather's watches...

I've had this three watches for a long time. My mom gave them to me after I pestered her for a number of years when I was a teenager. The pocket ones belonged to my grandpa and the Silvana to my great grandfather.
I don't know anything about one of them. Brand Oreintex that, according to my grandma, was my grandpa's equivalent to what we, in the hats thread, call a beater hat. Both the Omega and the Oreintex are wind-up mechanism; the Silvana is automatic.
Could anyone tell me a bit more about this watches? I love them and wear them, as they are all perfectly functional, every now and then.
Thanks,

Omega:

Oreintex:

Silvana:

 

[Shangas]

Hi,

The Oreintex looks like a fairly modern pocket watch. I'll wager that the case is gold-plated. If you look at the other pocket watches on this thread (my railroad watch, your Omega, etc, for example), you'll notice that they all have sub-seconds dials (the little dial at 6 o'clock). This was a common feature on vintage watches and almost no pocket watch was sold without one.

Leaving out the sub-seconds dial and adding in a longer, seconds hand is a fairly modern thing, so I suspect that the Oreintex is not as old as one might like to think.

My guess on the Omega is probably 1920s or 30s, based on the dial, case and hands, although I may be totally off.

It's important to get your watches serviced if you intend for them to last longer than they have. Running a watch without servicing it is like driving a car without lubricating oils in it.

 

[Aureliano]

Hi,

The Oreintex looks like a fairly modern pocket watch. I'll wager that the case is gold-plated. If you look at the other pocket watches on this thread (my railroad watch, your Omega, etc, for example), you'll notice that they all have sub-seconds dials (the little dial at 6 o'clock). This was a common feature on vintage watches and almost no pocket watch was sold without one.

Leaving out the sub-seconds dial and adding in a longer, seconds hand is a fairly modern thing, so I suspect that the Oreintex is not as old as one might like to think.

My guess on the Omega is probably 1920s or 30s, based on the dial, case and hands, although I may be totally off.

It's important to get your watches serviced if you intend for them to last longer than they have. Running a watch without servicing it is like driving a car without lubricating oils in it.

Thanks for the info, Shangas. I suspected that the Oreintex wasn't as old as the Omega (though still wind-up which I like and indeed gold-plated). Also not as valuable; as I said, my grandpa apparently used it as his every day, I-don't-care-much-about-it watch.
I have my watches serviced once a year, taking care of them was part of the deal when my Mom gave them to me.
Can you tell me anything about the Silvana? From your post I gathered it must not be that old. But according to my grandma, this Silvana is the watch that she saw her dad--my great grandfather-- wear forever. [huh]

 

[Shangas]

I really wouldn't dare to guess. To figure it out, I would have to know how old your grandmother is, and by extension, when your great-grandfather was born.

Keep in mind that the world's first automatic (that is, self-winding mechanical) wristwatches came out in the 1920s. They did not start becoming common until after WWII, if my history on watch is any good. That being the case, I sincerely doubt that your great-grandfather owned such a watch for any significant length of time...

 

[Aureliano]

I really wouldn't dare to guess. To figure it out, I would have to know how old your grandmother is, and by extension, when your great-grandfather was born.

Keep in mind that the world's first automatic (that is, self-winding mechanical) wristwatches came out in the 1920s. They did not start becoming common until after WWII, if my history on watch is any good. That being the case, I sincerely doubt that your great-grandfather owned such a watch for any significant length of time...

I see. I just asked grandma (she's 95 and strong as an ox. Great old school Italian Nona!) if she knew anything else but she doesn't.
I guess it'd be fair to asses that both the omega and the silvana date from around the same time?

Let me ask you something else as I know nothing about watches: all I need to do is to shake the Silvana a little bit for it to start working. Is this the self-winding mechanism you're talking about?

 

[Shangas]

Hi,

I suspect that the Omega is from the 1920s or 30s, although that's just an educated guess on my part. I've no idea about the wristwatch. It certainly doesn't have any prewar 1920s or 30s styling and I strongly suspect it's from the 50s or 60s or even more recent.

Automatic watches work by having a circular weight (known as the rotor) inside the movement. As the watch moves around, the rotor swings and spins around, and this winds up the mainspring inside the watch.

When you swing or shake your wristwatch, you'll feel something heavy and round swing around inside the watch: this is the rotor. Each swing winds up the mainspring a little more each time and this keeps the watch running until such time as the mainspring winds down (due to a lack of motion and use).

I was never a fan of automatic movements. Not knowing when the watch would run down and stop was something that didn't appeal to me. Regular hand-wound mechanical watches such as your Omega have a set time which they'll run for, once wound up (usually 36 hours or thereabouts), which lets me know when I need to rewind them.

 

[Aureliano]

Thanks for all your help. I appreciate it.

 

[Levallois]

Two new additions - Bulova tank in gold with rose-face and a Valencia in silver with art deco style. Anybody heard of the Valencia? - this is a new one on me. Thanks!

 

[davestlouis]

I'm wearing a late 1940s-mid 50s Tissot bumper drive automatic on a cheesy Speidel expanding bracelet, 36mm dial, give or take. Clean lined little watch in a gold-filled case. Other oldies are a Gruen VeriThin, 1940s I think, and a 1950s Gruen Precision. Both Gruens are tank-style, rectangular in shape, and look pretty small on my 7.5 inch wrist, so they don't get a lot of wrist time.

My newest piece is a 1982-85 Heuer quartz Professional Diver model 980-022 that's doing something weird today...jumping 7-8 minutes fast, then dropping 8 or more minutes slow. The battery isn't very old, I'm not sure what's going on with that one...

 

[sixties.nut]

The Citizen brand dates back to 1924. I wonder what the chances are of finding a Citizen watch from that period?

Sir, I have been on the lookout for an example of a vintage Citizen and have indeed found a couple of nice ones. Unfortunately they both were out of my reach. I came to this forum to in order to stay off the watch forum for a time to let the purse heal. I come across this topic and I'm right back at it.lol

What I find amazing about these old pieces is how well people took very good care of them in this (geographical) area. I am not talking just about watches either. This goes for vintage cars, trucks, radio appliances the whole shebang.

My oldest piece is a 1919 Omega Trench watch that has been at the spa in Berne for awhile now. I'm told when I receive it back it will be just like the day it left the dealers case. We'll see.

The Ball above is something to see isn't it. Better continue to take care of that one. Take it out once every week or two just to keep an eye on it. Plus, like our Fedora's (it's a chic magnet)

I've seen arabic dials before but none as pronounced as that one on the Illinois. I like those that you can tell the time from across the room and it keeps the cell phone dudes from asking. lol

Now for the Bulova and Elgin pieces I can only say that 'not even on a good day have I run across nice watches so reasonably priced. If you were talking to a watch dealer he'd swear that a pocket watch for twenty nine dollars was either plastic or stolen. lol You obviously were paying attention!

The omega pocketwatch just by looking at the stem and dial looks to be much later in production probably mid 1950's to early 1950's at the earliest.

It is a simple matter to pop the case and compare the movement serial with online serial listings. Omega was very meticulous in their documentation, as was Bulova with their numbering convention.

I'd link you to the trench watch, but I'm weary of photobucket right now. Anyway good hunting boys!

EDIT
Found a safe link to follow: http://forums.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?p=2150964


Regards,
Mike

I'm not going to buy another watch tonight, I'm not going to buy another watch tonight. I'm not.... hey looky this. lol

 

[Forgotten Man]

Geez, no one finding anything else but old watches? Kinda turned this thread into a watch thread... lol

Beautiful watches I must say, some wonderful stuff!

I haven't been to a thrift shop since Thursday... saw some "Princess" patterned pink depression glass saucers with one plate... really low prices, each saucer was $1.49 and the plate was $1.99... I was going to get them but, I really must stay with the green block optic I collect... and I'm moving this week to a smaller place just around the corner from this house. Need to move stuff out and not bring more in at this time. lol