New Member Intro

Have always been fascinated by time and timepieces and always owned several but hadn't considered collecting until recently. Because bicycles, and RC cars, and knives and antiques are apparently not enough, here I am! Brief explanation of how I got started down the rabbit hole. My wife and I go to estate sales fairly frequently and I'd picked up a few watches there. Always fun. My wife is from New Brunswick and my MIL stays with us during the winter. Couple years' back she brought my wife's grandmother's silver plate down for us. While going through the box I pulled out a bag, and inside the bag was what turned out to be an 18K gold Longines Grand Prize Automatic. Just a beautiful watch. She gave it to me, I took it to my jeweler, their watchmaker picked it up and they were able to source parts and repair (balance staff and something with the oscillator I believe?) and keep the original movement. I didn't ask for pictures of the movement because I didn't know then such things were needed LOL. The jeweler lost the piece of paper on which the watchmaker wrote the serial numbers etc. so I have to take it back at some point to get those. I know it's a caliber 340 and he thinks the watchmaker said 1966? The watch is immaculate because he rarely wore it and according to my MIL never took it in for service. When it stopped working it ended up in the bag with the silver and sat there for more than 25 years. According to her everything on the watch is original except the band. Covid kept my MIL from being able to come in 2020, but earlier this year a package arrived with a pretty little Longines-Wittnauer manual wind watch in the original box. Her father received this one from Kraft on 10 year anniversary in 1952, so it's at least that old. This was apparently the one he wore the most, not in the condition of the other, but still very nice and with a Wittnauer band. Had it serviced and have been wearing it, actually on my wrist today. She also gave me a little gold Gruen manual wind that I think is from the 1940's? MIL says he had this one before the Wittnauer. Has what she calls a "rock" crystal, I believe it's called a faceted crystal technically?

Anyway. Last weekend we were on a bike ride in our small home town and my wife said there was an estate sale she wanted to go to. Short version, amongst all the costume jewelry was a Mido Multifort Superautomatic that I'm guessing is from the 50's or 60's. Case a little rough on one side, looked like it had been dropped. Wound it, it ran, and for the princely sum of $8 it came home with me. It's being serviced. Bike ride and an oh yeah there's an estate sale. Exact same manner in which I found a never worn women's Citizen Ecodrive mixed in with costume jewelry a couple years back. Go figure.

At this point I'm hooked. My tastes in most things tend to run to vintage and will probably be so with watches. Won't be the first time we've been perusing estate sales and my wife has heard, "Let's get dressed and get rolling because that's coming home with us" ha ha ha. I don't own anything I don't use, so whatever I acquire will get worn. I'm sure the watch collection will end up being like the knives, just eclectic and pieces that speak to me. Have enjoyed looking at the beautiful watches here and starting to learn a little bit. Looks like a steep learning curve, looking forward to learning from the experts here. I'll be the one asking the dumb questions LOL. Will try to get some decent pics up shortly.

Edit: Does anyone have suggestions for books or other resources so I can learn more about vintage watches? Thank you.

Welcome! Seems like you are fully down the rabbit hole. Pictures or it never happened 😉

Thank you. Pics I can and will do. Forgot to mention the plethora of photographic equipment that's another hobby! Will call my jeweler and see if he can ask the watchmaker to take pics of the inside of the Mido when he services. Also forgot to mention the Grand Prize was a 25th anniversary present from Kraft to my wife's grandfather. Inscribed on the case back so we know he got it February 1967. Lot of fun. He and I had similar tastes. I also have some of his old tools, a set of his gold Cross pens, some other things that I really love. Which makes my wife happy so everyone's a winner!

You’ll be happy to know there are numerous threads for just this topic 👍 Many of us here share this same interest for both film and digital gear. I myself have numerous Leica, Hasselblad, and Rollei gear with a sprinkling of Contax, Pentax, and Mamiya 😀

Welcome to the forum!

Welcome, you’ll fit right at home here!! If you’re looking for reading material you’ve come to the right place - plenty of threads on all topics you can imagine 😀

Thanks for the welcomes. Scarecrow Boat I saw you talking about developing film in the pet photos. Still have my old AE1-P and grandfather’s Pentax ME Super. Been a hot minute since I’ve shot any film but keep threatening to. Will get some pics up soon of these dirty beggars currently lying at my feet. Have found great info here already including one on Learning How to Fish that I need to finish. The things y’all can spot in a photo are amazing. I’m going to need some practice!

Yeah both of those were taken with my Contax T2 😀 My only other 35mm cameras are a Leica M3, M2, MDa, and M6. I love to shoot Medium format. My only digital camera is my phone 😀 Look forward to seeing more of your posts around the community!

Welcome to the forums! 😀