- Posts
- 389
- Likes
- 1,559
Muddlerminnow
·Newbie here. God save me.
I'm coming to watches from vintage bamboo fly rods--as if I need another expensive vice. I've been into bamboo for over 30 years. A lot of the issues that relate to vintage watches seem (from my lurking) to apply to vintage bamboo rods--how there are so many ways originality is compromised over time--and how in many instances it was part of the routine maintenance--. Rods often have the varnish touched up, wraps replaced, and sometimes the entire rod stripped, rewrapped, and revarnished--sometimes by the original maker, sometimes by others. Rods made in the 50s and restored in the 70s or 80s and fished since then can be hard to distinguish from originals, especially when original wraps and guides were saved--but it can be done with a lot of experience. That's what scares me a little about watches--it takes the same painstaking time to learn all this stuff.
The difference between watches and bamboo fly rods is the market: fiy fishermen who use bamboo are a dying demographic. Not a big resale market right now--and prices have been flat, even declining, over the past 20 years. Watches? Well, you know that story....
Right now, I'm tip-toeing in, looking at Seamasters and Constellations from the 1960s, and trying to learn the nuanced art of detecting redials. Some seem to be done awfully well--. So we will see how this plays out.
mm
I'm coming to watches from vintage bamboo fly rods--as if I need another expensive vice. I've been into bamboo for over 30 years. A lot of the issues that relate to vintage watches seem (from my lurking) to apply to vintage bamboo rods--how there are so many ways originality is compromised over time--and how in many instances it was part of the routine maintenance--. Rods often have the varnish touched up, wraps replaced, and sometimes the entire rod stripped, rewrapped, and revarnished--sometimes by the original maker, sometimes by others. Rods made in the 50s and restored in the 70s or 80s and fished since then can be hard to distinguish from originals, especially when original wraps and guides were saved--but it can be done with a lot of experience. That's what scares me a little about watches--it takes the same painstaking time to learn all this stuff.
The difference between watches and bamboo fly rods is the market: fiy fishermen who use bamboo are a dying demographic. Not a big resale market right now--and prices have been flat, even declining, over the past 20 years. Watches? Well, you know that story....
Right now, I'm tip-toeing in, looking at Seamasters and Constellations from the 1960s, and trying to learn the nuanced art of detecting redials. Some seem to be done awfully well--. So we will see how this plays out.
mm
