Post pics of your watches Part II
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Just catching back up on a few days and ironically I'm wearing a Seiko also today. This is such an easy watch to wear, case and strap make it very comfortable. Strap is a great length on my 8" wrist. For me it's a brilliant tool watch.
Must clean the strap as between sweat and salt water there is a bit of residue on it.
Seiko King Turtle:
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,075 Mod ✭✭✭✭
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+1. New watches these days, especially as they've become more expensive and have higher quality steels, printing and are designed with materials that won't age. The lume will always be white/blue/etc, the ceramic bezels where present will never age and beyond scratches in the metal they'll always look "new" and a small part of me doesn't like that. The days of lightly patina'd dials, lume and bezels etc are pretty much gone. They'll never age like an old pair of jeans. Wabi sabi will be in the past as it were.
I've a few "regrets: about watches I didn't buy back in the day and one was the cheapest. A 1917 Longines "Trench" watch, originally sold in the French market. It was kinda bollexed in the visuals. The ceramic dial(which when looked after can last like new forever pretty much) was heavily crazed and there was even a couple of lumps out of it with the underlying copper showing. But unusually for a Trenchie it was also all original and all present, hands, crown and all that, and was running like a freight train. 200 quid. And like a gobshíte I didn't bite. I had six other Trench watches at the time so figured I was kinda covered. Doh.
Older pic of two of mine. The left the one you asked for another pic of. A ghost bezel Heuer 1550SG Flyback from 1967, on a 90's original of the species Phoenix G-10 "NATO" strap. The majority of these have been fecked around by either the German military who issued them and constantly replaced old with new, or gussied up by the Sinn selloff in the late 80's(they had the service contract for the German BUND), or latterly by dodgy dealers making "new" watches from the once common collection of spares, so most look "like new"(and unsually for vintage stuff, that gets a premium). But this being a non issued and very early one is what a 50 odd year old worn watch should look like.
The one on the right I'm wearing today. Doxa 1941 German issued "DH"(Dienstuhr Heer/Service watch Army)
and one of the rarer all stainless steel cased examples as most were plated brass. The correct original hands and crown which are often lost to time. With a contemporary bracelet. Wee at 34mm. 😁 The quality of stainless steel is very high. The original brushed case finish is all still there even the circular caseback brushing as you can see above.
Cracking little watch this, with a lovely Doxa movement with an early "shockproof" design(German military specs insisted on that along with black dials, radium lume, sub seconds and "Waterproof"). Which has a few watchmaker's scratchings so was looked after. Not the usual Russian/Ukrainian(don't mention the war!) lashups for ebay. Only 15 jewels too, but mad accurate, a couple of seconds per day. I mean look where the regulator is
Smack dab in the middle. Even had the original lead seal for the caseback. I've since slapped a rubber gasket in there and stuck a rubber gasket in the crown(fiddly as feck). IIRC they were originally leather. I've worn it working on DIY, feckin' about with cars, going fishing, even clay pigeon shooting and never gave it a second thought. There's something to be said of smaller well built watches in that regard.
Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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That Heuer has it all, aged beautifully but quality made, a fine wine deal there. Makes me want to rip my ceramic bezel inserts out lol. Font is lovely (look at the 4!) and the case and dial proportions are spot on.
It reminds me, visually at least why I love my old seiko sna139.
Shame about that Longines trench watch. Had a look there and they're so nice, there's a very good condition Mappin (as in "and Webb") example for a grand online now.
Your not afraid to use them eh! Good on ya, nothing worse than a drawer queen that was designed for hard use. I'm somewhat the same but have recoiled like nosferatu with a crucifix thrust in his face when my son showed his new neodymium magnets. The good wife also now knows to not leave my watch on my moby after our "we need to talk" talk lol.
As I think about I have a favour to ask you as I reckon this is a you question! In yer wheelhouse as the yanks say...
I have a recently resurfaced "heirloom piece of great sentimentality" as the saying goes. I'd like it to run again and maybe you're the man to advise me and I'd lay a bet you can tell me a lot about it too?
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,075 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59004
The first "Submarine" named watch was the Tavannes of 1917 designed for and to the specs of officers in the British submarine fleet based in Scotland retailed by an Edinburgh jewellers whose name escapes. The first true "waterproof" watch, which was also the first fully antimagnetic because of the consideration of the interference from the massive batteries on subs. They seem to go on for a few years though are rare to see now. The next "Submarine" watches I know of came around in the late 1920's produced and patented by one Edward Harrop of London, the "EH" in your caseback markings. These had eberhard movements if memory serves. The hallmark on yours would place it to 1932.
Note how the dial is blank. That was for the retailers name to be added later, usually long lost to time as it was printed on the surface. Even by this stage in the British(and her empire) market many buyers prefered to buy by retailer rather than Swiss brand name, most of which they wouldn't have heard of anyway(In Europe and the US it was far more by brand name). Rolex's near singular innovation in its history was to popularise the brand name over the retailer and it was a fantastic bit of thinking. Today that trend is almost entirely gone, but one hold out remains; Tiffany. And holds a premium with it.
Your watch probably just needs a service, new mainspring, crystal etc. If the balance pivot is broken, a common thing before shockproofing, the movement is a relatively common one and a replacement pivot should be easy enough to source. The only thing I can see that isn't original is the crown. These originally had quite a large crown. Maybe a saved search on ebay for a donor? Luckily the hands are original as they often go missing down the years. It has a radium dial so I'd not go around sniffing it. 😁 If it is enamel(and it looks like it?) that could be cleaned off and replaced by modern non mutant causing lume on the dial and already cleaned hands. I've done this on a few of my old Trench watches. They were handpainted originally so don't have to be letter/number perfect. They weren't in period.
Another advantage being that they now glow like torches in the dark.
Child that I am. 😁
Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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Speedie Wednesday?
Sure, why not!
![JQu0KI[1].jpg](https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/XENL27WTY77O/jqu0ki-5b1-5d.jpg)
I'm finding that the more I wear the Speedie, the less I wear anything else, even when travelling.
I was at an event yesterday, I think I spotted, for the first time for me, an Audemars Piguet in the wild.
Looked like a Royal Oak Chrono on some kind of an OEM strap that had metal endlinks.
Spectacular!
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,075 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59004
I'll keep an eye out for an original crown. For some reason when crowns were replaced on older watches they went for much smaller than original, which tends to make them harder to wind too. Personally Id give the case a bit of a polish. Being silver helps here as it usually comes up really well. Handily again with silver there tends not to be hard edges on such cases(silver being a soft metal). Slap on a a new crystal and away you go. 🙂
As you say it does look like it was looked after for a good while. The lume in the hands looks replaced too. Radium lume tends to break down the fastest in the hands as they're exposed on both sides to the air, plus radium is very "hot" radioactivity wise so actually breaks down the binding material.
/Aside: when you see well meaning expert types say "if the lume in a watch's hands is a different colour to the lume of the dial it's not original", do NOT treat that as gospel. Like I say hand lume is exposed on both sides so tends to age differently, plus hands and dials were nearly always bought in from outside and usually different suppliers with different lume mixes. Some examples can age very differently, some 70's Heuers a good example:
Sadly not mine, but a watch with a one owner provenance going back to the egg. The dial lume has retained almost all of its original green tritium, the hands have gone full soaked in coffee "tropical". The 70's in particular was a time of fecking about with different dial finishes and colours, many that don't hold the years well. Annnnyway....
As for repair this chap has a very good rep https://vintagewatchrepair.ie/ costs wise he quotes 230 for a manual wind mechanical, though the age of your watch would add to that, especially if the balance pivot is bust. Does it tick at all? If you have one of those watchmaker's blower things maybe give the balance a bit of a puff and see if it swings freely. If it does, then result! If it doesn't maybe keep an eye out for a working movement/balance on ebay? If not the balance it could just be old dried up gunk or a busted mainspring that stopped it working. If no parts are needed I'd reckon budget 3-400? That's a major guess on my part mind you.
I wouldn't worry about the radium from just wearing the watch the odd time. The danger comes from opening the back, even then... Well so long as you don't go licking it. 😁 Size wise the fashion in the 20's and 30's was for very small by today's standards. I'd guess 32-33mm? I've vintage style thin wrists so don't mind wearing "small" watches, often prefer them actually, but you may be different.
Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,075 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59004
Oops, keeping on topic, for a nice change, today I'm wearing this Wagner on a period strap:
Issued to the German forces(paratroopers/air force) in 1943.
The back of the dial has a the date of the 18 of May '43 printed on it. Bigger at 35mm compared to other German issued watches(other than the huge navigator types). German made as by 43 they'd started to run out of hard currency to pay the Swiss for their stuff. The plated case still holds up and it retains it's original "waterproof" crown which are usually long missing. The subseconds is not as balanced as some from this period mainly because the German industry didn't have many circular movements to use, so they used a rectangular movement that had been fitted to the very fash for the 30's "Tank" style watches and it didn't quite "fit" in a way.
These days you often see similar in modern reissues of old watches from company's back catalogues, again because the modern movements don't quite "fit" like the originals as they were designed to be centre seconds movements.
Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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