Quite lovely. Understandably hard to wear.

 

Not really. I give all of ‘em wrist time occasionally because I’m sort of afraid it will hurt their feelings if I don’t. I can’t bear the look of a sad panda dial.

 

I have a few old quartz watches I won't wear anymore. A Skagen with a broken crystal, a technomarine that needs a battery and I dont even feel the need to put them back into working order. I think I've also retired my Oris Titan Chronograph, I won't be wearing it anytime soon. I wore it exclusively for years...

 

Retired, gone and fled the country

 

I have an old Citizen Skyhawk Titanium that is pretty beaten up, but I keep it for sentimental value. My wife gave it to me over 10 years ago when I completed Navy pilot training and earned my wings. It's endured years on the wrist over hundreds of flight hours and multiple deployments worth of abuse as I took it all over the world with me. I've put it through hell, and the watch survived all of it, only to die quietly at home a couple of years ago. The main reason I stopped wearing it was the (mineral) crystal became so scratched it was getting hard to read the digital display. The UTC sub-dial is also perpetually about 27 minutes off the main dial, the battery no longer holds a charge for more than about a day, and it keeps lousy time, so something is clearly mechanically awry. The bezel hasn't turned in years. I've thought about getting the watch fixed, but at this point there is so much wrong with it that there probably isn't much left to "fix" except maybe the case and bracelet, and it probably isn't economically viable to do so.

Don't worry, I'm much nicer to my Omegas, although my X-33 is my go-to flight watch nowadays. Still a Ti fan.

In Honorable Retirement:

 

Wore this through Afghanistan and East Timor in the 90s. Haven’t worn it in years and it needs a service, but can’t ever see myself getting rid of it. Too many memories

 

Dibs on the foal...

 

I use to collect pocket watches when I first started collecting watches but switched to vintage wristwatches and military issued watches some pocket watches I mite let go one of these days that I collected early in this hobby. But some I will hold on to my Grandfathers Pocket watch given to him on his 21 birthday the first pocket watch I bought at a pawn shop a Hamilton 992 railroad watch a really plain case nothing special that got me into this hobby and a few pocket watches given to me from friends and the oldest watch I own a early Fusee pocket watch made in 1812 and one pocket watch I wear once in a while a Waltham 23 jewel with wind indicator pocket watch there all sort of retired but I am holding on to them. A few photo's of some of them.
The oldest watch in the collection


Real cool movement check out the face all hand made no mass production in 1812



My Grandfathers pocket watch in a hunter case.



One of the watches friends just gave me a Hamilton 2974B US Navy comparing watch since it's military since that's my main focus in collecting I keep it for the history.

 

I’m late to this thread as usual. I have two quartz watches I don’t wear but they were from my late mother who loved me and knew nothing about watches.

The Big Bird was my first watch. Can’t let that go. All others in rotation.

 

Dad's Seamaster DeVille will stay retired till I find a replacement case at a reasonable price or get the engraved case repaired. outside of that I don't usually consciously retire a watch i just lose track of it for years at a time, sometimes decades.
Still have the Ingraham Biltmore pocket watch I carried as a Cub scout and later as a Boy Scout. Frozen solid right now, but I intend to take it apart and restore it to working order next spring.
My Zorro Watch from the mid Fifties is in running order, even keeps time, but of course its too small to wear and has been for half a century or so. It hangs on the wall next to the Biltmore.

I can only remember selling one watch, a nice Baylor automatic diver style watch I got for half price when the local Zale's jeweler went out of business around 1970. I friend was taken with the watch and since the band was not comfortable for me I sold it to him for what I had in it. I've given several watches away, don't remember much about those.

A nice Timex blew a gasket or whatever when I took a train trip around Iron mountain. Apparently it was not quite as antimagnetic as it was expected to be, it never hit another lick.

 

With about 10% of my wrist watch collection that I actually wear, and likely fewer of my pocket watches that see use, I don’t consider any that I don’t wear regularly as “retired”. All perform, and any one might be called into service on a whim.

 

I find myself trying to save watches from being taken apart for spares or scrap, so i bring them out of retirement.

I bought this in 2007, with a missing pusher as a non-runner.


By some luck, i managed to get this 8 years later. Same model, middle case


Here at the watchmaker's getting the case swapped.


Same with this, broken mainspring, missing pusher, in very fair condition overall, but the dial looked good..


A new pair of pushers actually cost more than the watch, lol, As did the service with a new mainspring & crystal, but the movement was worth saving.


I got it back earlier this year

 

I love both of these watches. The 2974B is on my bucket list and I have always really liked fusee movements. Is this one a Verge or a Cylinder.

 

This WWI era Omega was a "retired" watch that I bought along with several other movements and my first set of tools from an estate sale. The case was missing the bezel and the hour hand was broken, but the balance was good. I cleaned the movement and it ran well, so I started looking for a bezel for it. This summer I finally just bought another trench watch that had a broken balance but a fairly nice silver case. The movement went into the case and I was able to use the hour hand from the new watch. The minute hand was a smaller diameter so I kept the original minute hand, I will need to locate a matching hour hand at some point and I will need to trim the stem a couple of threads. Other than that it is working well and keeping good time.

 

I've noticed many of the finer hunter and double hunter pocket watches up for bids recently lack a crystal entirely though there's no sign of damage to the case and the crystals would have been protected from damage in almost any situation. It dawned on me that in the old days blind people often carried such watches with the crystals removed so they could tell the time by carefully feeling the position of the hands with their finger tips.

 

Most of my watches these days go unworn, honestly. I work from home, and I have two kids under 4 years old, so I don't typically wear a good watch when that I have to worry about when running about after them. At home I wear a Casio Oceanus three hand solar/atomic titanium on bracelet. It has two super bright llluminating LEDs on it that I end up using as a micro flashlight half the time in the middle of the night or when looking around in the darkened baby's room. When I go out, I'll typically put on my Speedmaster, just to enjoy it.

Rarely I'll switch up to wearing something else around the house for a while, but I find myself coming back to the quartz for sheer convenience sake. I have probably 25 watches, and at most 5 of them get worn.

 

Just took an old Quartz watch out of retirement. It is not an expensive or even very good looking watch but keeps time and is slim. It had the most awful looking uncomfortable band, stiff corrugated rubber. I haven't worn it since I got it as a gift in the 90's.
The band size being 24 mm replacements were not to be found locally. I ordered a cheap Chinese Deployment band of black silicon rubber. The band took a month to get here. It's still not much of a watch but now its usable.
I won't worry about wearing it while clearing brush.

 

Verge it's also a pair case

Cool watch repair paper

Side shot were you can see the chain and the hand blown glass crystal one watch you never want to break the crystal were would you find another now that's a dome.

 

RiverRat, that is a fantastic watch.