When I was 17, I bought my first vintage wrist watch. It was a small and simple Elgin in a dog-legged case with a strange paper dial and sub-second at 9. But it worked and kept time and had a local watchmaker service it. I wore that watch for 10 years and loved it- it was my first vintage watch. One day at the gym back in 2000, I had it on top of my clothes in the locker and after showering, grabbed the clothes and the watch plummeted to the floor- bam, no longer working- I was crushed. I brought it to my watchmaker and he said it had a broken balance staff and he couldn’t fix it, and parts were NLA. So it sat in my junk drawer for the next 19 years. About 3 months ago I got into a conversation about vintage watches with one of our esteemed resident watchmakers - @Canuck , and mentioned the watch. I sent him a pic of the movement and he immediately recognized it as a 7-jewel movement and a “conversion” case (a factory kit by which you could convert a pocket watch to a wrist watch back in the early 20th century). He told me it wasn’t worth fixing- but, it was is in the same family as some of their much finer movements and I could source a ladies pocket watch with the better movement for a transplant. He told me what to look for on eBay as a donor movement, I sent him links and he saw one that he approved of. Donor watch in hand, I brought it to my watchmaker- he said the donor was in excellent condition and a simple CLA and swap over to the case and my first vintage watch, that hasn’t run in almost 20 years, is back on my wrist. Without this community..... I have no words....I love you all. James
@JwRosenthal, I share your sentiments about this wonderful community. That is a nice Elgin you have, and a great backstory. Here are a couple pocket watch to wristwatch conversions I picked up over the years, a 1904 Dueber-Hampden and a 1913 Hampden.
A “conversion” dial made it possible to convert an open faced woman’s pocket watch movement for use as a wrist watch. That could well have happened with the subject watch, hence the seconds bit is at the 9 position rather than at the 6 position usually found on wrist watches. In order to achieve this conversion, a ladie’s OPEN FACED watch was located, allowing the conversion dial to be used, by turning the open faced movement 90° clockwise, and fitting the conversion dial. Voila! The seconds hand ends up at the 9 position! Glad to have been able to help. And thanks to the watchmaker who agreed to service the watch and do the conversion.
Just thought I would share another wrist shot- this thing is only 30mm. Hilarious to think I wore this daily 20+ years ago. But on a pull through military strap and with the chunky case, it wears surprisingly much larger than one would think. And I forgot, the crystal is actually mineral crystal- not acrylic....no amount of polywatch will help.
You might try the pink polish made for cleaning armored vehicle vision blocks. This stuff fills in scratches and leaves a smooth surface that disguises scratches and scraps.
My watchmaker was funny- when I picked it up he was pleased with the results- in his modest soft spoken way he said pretty much in one breath “yeah, I think it turned out nicely- don’t get this thing anywhere near water”.