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noless
·Someone should start a thread of straps worth more than the watches on which they live.
Worst discoveries inside a vintage watch
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S.H.
·Worst discoveries? Off the top
of my head:
- glued (superglue, as in lots of it) dial "yes, I scratched the main plate so that the glue could get a really good grip, too bad it got into the kif springs" / longines pocket watch
- glued incabloc and water ingress "I could not access the incabloc because of rusted screws, so broke it to add some lubricant and glued it" / speedmaster
- double sided sticky tape to hold a dial with feet too short (i. e. wrong dial for the watch) "because even dial dots are too expensive and l'm in a hurry, having just sold this POS for 5,5k "/ navitimer 809 (I had a jolly good time lengthening the feet)
- double sided sticky tape to hold a train bridge <- my personal favorite 😒/ regular eta
- glued chrono hands / various chronos
- regular steel screws for casebacks "because buying an assortment of standard inox screws is way too hard or costly or whatever "/ cartier
- glued staff (good luck getting some accuracy) / very old and early As auto
- regular tension ring crystal on a monobloc case "because l'm an a$$hole, f*ck the next guy, and I just sold this for..." / omega dynamic
Sometimes it gets a bit tiring to clean up after brain damaged greedy fools.
of my head:
- glued (superglue, as in lots of it) dial "yes, I scratched the main plate so that the glue could get a really good grip, too bad it got into the kif springs" / longines pocket watch
- glued incabloc and water ingress "I could not access the incabloc because of rusted screws, so broke it to add some lubricant and glued it" / speedmaster
- double sided sticky tape to hold a dial with feet too short (i. e. wrong dial for the watch) "because even dial dots are too expensive and l'm in a hurry, having just sold this POS for 5,5k "/ navitimer 809 (I had a jolly good time lengthening the feet)
- double sided sticky tape to hold a train bridge <- my personal favorite 😒/ regular eta
- glued chrono hands / various chronos
- regular steel screws for casebacks "because buying an assortment of standard inox screws is way too hard or costly or whatever "/ cartier
- glued staff (good luck getting some accuracy) / very old and early As auto
- regular tension ring crystal on a monobloc case "because l'm an a$$hole, f*ck the next guy, and I just sold this for..." / omega dynamic
Sometimes it gets a bit tiring to clean up after brain damaged greedy fools.
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STANDY
··schizophrenic pizza orderer and watch collectorYears ago I asked a seller for a movement shot and the spacer holding the watch in was a perfectly cut Australian 20c coin…with a smaller woman’s watch movement inside…..if only he had not left the water swirling around the edge 😁
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Canuck
·Years ago, I was brought a Rolex Oyster Date chronometer that needed parts which I didn’t have. I sent it to an acquaintance that could get parts. He did the repair and returned the watch to me, fixed. I phoned the customer who said he’d be over to pick it up. I wound and set it, but it wouldn’t run! I opened it to find a paper shim under the heel of the balance cock! Checking further, I found a badly worn pivot on the balance staff! I had a staff for it and fitted it before my customer came to pick it up. Needless to say I no longer rely on the jerk who made a shoddy repair on the Rolex!
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noless
·This was not the result of watchmaker slip-up. But it was a discovery that startled me. The owner told me the watch was erratic, and had no power reserve. I suspected a broken mainspring, but THIS!
The materials engineer in me has gotten really curious about this one, a long shot i know but you dont happen to randomly have a fragment of that mainspring kicking around still? (I know I hoard a lot of stuff even when its still broken "just in case I can find a use for it later") I think a look at the fracture surface might be most enlightening.
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Canuck
·The materials engineer in me has gotten really curious about this one, a long shot i know but you dont happen to randomly have a fragment of that mainspring kicking around still? (I know I hoard a lot of stuff even when its still broken "just in case I can find a use for it later") I think a look at the fracture surface might be most enlightening.
Regrettably, no. I don’t have any of that mainspring, any longer. The watch was about 20 years old at the time. These alloy springs have occasionally cratered at about that time in their lives. But never before have I had one disintegrate the way this one did!
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JwRosenthal
·Years ago I asked a seller for a movement shot and the spacer holding the watch in was a perfectly cut Australian 20c coin…with a smaller woman’s watch movement inside…..if only he had not left the water swirling around the edge 😁
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Archer
··Omega Qualified WatchmakerWhere do I even start...picking the worst would be very difficult, so I'll list a few contenders for bad work, or just plain dumb work...
Start with this nice Zenith pocket watch...
How to keep the ratchet wheel in place when the screw is busted off in the barrel arbor...
New barrel arbor and ratchet wheel screw were made for this repair...
How about a repaired minute wheel post on this Speedmaster - looks like someone just jammed an old winding stem in there (the part in the hole is square) and filed the post to be semi-round...
Proper repair done...
Someone was using something other than the correct tool to remove the chronograph drive wheel on this Speedmaster movement...
When the regulating pin on the Cal. 321 Speedmaster (sold by a well-known dealer) broke, the solution to repair it involved copious volumes of glue...
How about the Cal. 321 balance staff that someone decided to...for lack of a better word, sharpen?
Other end:
For reference, this is what the staff pivots should actually look like:
The balance amplitudes with this staff were excellent, but positional variation was crap - new staff required.
Braking grease inside the barrel...
Of a manual winding Speedmaster...
And this was after a factory service no less...🤦
I could go on for pages and pages...unfortunately...
Start with this nice Zenith pocket watch...
How to keep the ratchet wheel in place when the screw is busted off in the barrel arbor...
New barrel arbor and ratchet wheel screw were made for this repair...
How about a repaired minute wheel post on this Speedmaster - looks like someone just jammed an old winding stem in there (the part in the hole is square) and filed the post to be semi-round...
Proper repair done...
Someone was using something other than the correct tool to remove the chronograph drive wheel on this Speedmaster movement...
When the regulating pin on the Cal. 321 Speedmaster (sold by a well-known dealer) broke, the solution to repair it involved copious volumes of glue...
How about the Cal. 321 balance staff that someone decided to...for lack of a better word, sharpen?
Other end:
For reference, this is what the staff pivots should actually look like:
The balance amplitudes with this staff were excellent, but positional variation was crap - new staff required.
Braking grease inside the barrel...
Of a manual winding Speedmaster...
.jpg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds)
And this was after a factory service no less...🤦
I could go on for pages and pages...unfortunately...
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Pianotuna
·When I worked for the piano movers, they would talk about the strange things found in pianos. Usually caches of gold coins. As this was a favorite place to hide things. Sometimes one might also find the family silver. Bit hard to hide such things inside a watch though.
-j
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JwRosenthal
·And ludo buttons
https://robbreport.com/style/watch-collector/rare-paul-newman-rolex-daytona-2870019/
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dsio
··Ash @ ΩFI bought a fairly trashed 321 Speedmaster that had been partially eaten / chewed on by an infant. I don’t know why anyone would give a 321 Speedmaster to a teething child but someone did that shit. So it was apparently still running and keeping time, which was a good sign. When I got it, I open it up and go… where’s my chronograph? All the time only pieces were there, so it actually ran very well as a 3 hand watch but all the chronograph components were removed. I have so many questions with this watch, thankfully its parted out and gone now.
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Pianotuna
·Unfortunately not a Daytona
https://robbreport.com/style/watch-collector/rare-paul-newman-rolex-daytona-2870019/
I did once retrieve several pieces of jewelry and a couple of watches all in plastic bags from the bottom of a piano once. We’d bought it from a family whose mother had owned it previously. We called them up and it turned out that in the weeks following their mother’s passing the family had turned the home inside out looking for these items. The watches and assorted jewelry had minimal value except to them and they were quite appreciative of the find. Most definitely the family did not think to look in the bottom of the piano.
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lejaune
·I bought a fairly trashed 321 Speedmaster that had been partially eaten / chewed on by an infant. I don’t know why anyone would give a 321 Speedmaster to a teething child but someone did that shit. So it was apparently still running and keeping time, which was a good sign. When I got it, I open it up and go… where’s my chronograph? All the time only pieces were there, so it actually ran very well as a 3 hand watch but all the chronograph components were removed. I have so many questions with this watch, thankfully its parted out and gone now.
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JwRosenthal
·Wow! That kid must have had very strong teeth 😜
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sheepdoll
·I bought a fairly trashed 321 Speedmaster that had been partially eaten / chewed on by an infant. I don’t know why anyone would give a 321 Speedmaster to a teething child but someone did that shit. So it was apparently still running and keeping time, which was a good sign. When I got it, I open it up and go… where’s my chronograph? All the time only pieces were there, so it actually ran very well as a 3 hand watch but all the chronograph components were removed. I have so many questions with this watch, thankfully its parted out and gone now.
Which shows this
With visions of chrono parts dancing in one's head.
Nice dial, though and I am sure someone will get it for that alone, outside my budget, although now have a micro grail wanting that Tissot logo on a dial. Must remember I already have 25 or more chronographs in various states of repair and I need tools like a broken screw extractor and a timegrapher ...
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Pianotuna
·The motor-racing chapter of OF would be interested in more details.
My old man was around the scene in NZ in the late fifties. Moss, Clark, Surtees and others like Jo Bonnier (mum was quite smitten), Archie Scott-Brown, Stewart Lewis-Evans were visitors to our humble suburban home. They were great times.