This needed its own thread for my own sanity, what's left of it anyway ... So I was going back and forth with my buddy who is really into pocket watches and he sends me the link to this on ebay and after almost zero deliberation, I clicked the buy it now button for $100 and today it arrived.

Cracked dial. No hands. No glass, which seems like 43mm / 19''' in diameter. Couldn't get a pic of the marking under the balance yet but it reads 40.6L.T2 and the balance shaft is definitely broken. Figured it was worth owning at the very least. I know how to look up the serial number on the balance, but I assume the other numbers are some case serial?

Thanks for looking.

 

The movement dates to 1925 but the case, if it follows the same formula, dates to 1930.

I'll have to get the movement out and see what else is going on but I have a couple other projects in the pipeline first.

 

Was there an empty Scotch bottle?
Donor?

 

Keep us posted regarding how you are able to work miracles with this!

 

There definitely should be a mark coming in the, " Moment of Madness " column

 

So supportive!

@sheepdoll would approve and appreciate this labor of love

 

Invent a fancy description for the dial. Like a “Richter Scale 7 dial”. It will instantly increase in value. Works for rolexeses.

Example: This is a high magnitude dial. Highly desirable. Hands fell off.

 

Hilarious mate lol

 

I am pipe organing today.

Someday I'll warm again to my PWs. I have a few omegas in various states of completeness. I spent years back in the 1990s on the weekends taking an enamel jewelry class. Perhaps I will get around to making a pad printer. I do have a program for creating watch dials and re-installed the font creation program.

Ofrie does sell a low temp enamel powder for filling cracks. Hands can be filed out of old mainsprings.

 

That's the kind of attitude I like to see. I knew there had to be a way to fix the enamel. Hell, I'd do the Japanese method of "kintsugi" with gold. No reason to be totally against a smash job. Though my buddy is saying it looks more like an Ingersoll case he has on another piece. I'm sure a case I can use will pop up somewhere, some day?

 

Pull the dial and put it in some water with denture-cleaning tablets. That'll get most of the dirt out of the cracks and they'll not be so obvious.

 

I think the very fact that you have to ask that question tells me you know you paid too much! I bought this one for $50.00 (Cdn.)! It needed work, but that only took about 3 hours.

 

I can get a balance shaft for like $20 from France and I should have the toola to do that much. Hairspring looks only a little twisted ... I've seen worse. Should be fun.

Though to be fair, I didn't really ask about the cost as I saw better ones for twice the cost, just if the stuff is useful enough to get me on the "in for a penny" thread Something like this is more about the journey and the experience.

 

Ok you made me get the PWs out of the cash box. They are not in much better shape than yours. Well apart from the Samueles one. Which is quite interesting. Samueles called themselves the Tiffany of the west (But so does Shrive & company.) They had a street clock (which might still be there as the city now owns it insured by Lloyds of London. Was always getting smashed.) Lloyds pulled out of SF back in the 1980s when Interstate Banking was reinstated (Removing one of the Main foundational protections from the 1930s. Which really really needs to be reinstated. Banks should be locally owned, Not Multinational Delaware/Georgia corporations run by stateless Oligarchs).

Surprisingly the Samueles still runs. Probably one of the nicer watches I have even if it is in a GF case. One has to appreciate that like a good actor. Omega can be just as good behind the mask. That the brand does not have to brag as the watch speaks for itself.

Anyway. This is a good sample of Omega Pocket watches collected in the 1990s. The one in the Lower right, is probably the best one. I have posted photos of it before. Now burred in the PW and springs threads. (since there is no PW sub form.)

I notice that many of the dials seem to have been crudely repaired. Like the 4 in the lower center example. Even the lower right good watch has chips in the dial at the 8 and 4. Some of these have 3 dial feet. Also they may have been ripped out of gold cases.

The upper center looks like a decent watch. It also looks like I found a crystal that fit in the crystal assortment. (They never have the size you need, because that is the size everyone needs.) I think it looks nice with the sticker still on the crystal, even if it does cover the logo.

The scraps on either side, are in some ways the ones I like the best. The left watch might mostly be complete, apart from it is missing an escape wheel (or pinion.) Since I built a pinion cutter for the repeater I was probably going to make a new pinion. Who knows where the pinionless escape wheel came from.

The scraps on the right are pretty much just plates. Does seem to have a balance, but the staff is broken. I was probably intending to make a new one.

I think now with the net, it might be possible to find parts for 16 or 18 sized movements. I suspect however dials would be tricky. Why I took the enameling class and spent several years learning enameling on the weekends. It was quite an obsession and probably why my future job prospects suffered. I tend to go hot and cold on my passions. But they never really go away completely. More that I do not have the time to give them the focus needed. I have enough for at least 500 years.

 

I got my out today and my dial is 42.8mm with 3 feet. I'm going to clean it like SkunkPrince suggested and then repair it like you did. It's all a learning curve. I have a large assorted of crystals but it doesn't seem like I have this one but I'll keep an eye out over time. So maybe some day it'll be a working item.

 

Akkk. Someone polluted this thread with an American watch photo. I have lost all interest currently in American pocket watches. There are too many of them. Especially Waltham. I wasted too much time on these. I have a drawer full of them. They are basically only good for railroad nuts and steampunk art. Most of these are 120 years old. Sorting parts is another waste of time. The parts only get in the way and there is no interest on eBay to sell them. The good ones are already collected or are only worth the scrap metal value. They are so large they are basically CLOCKS. (I hope the sarcasm filter is turned on. where is that checkbox again...)

There are things I really wanted to do today. Instead I have been trying to save my spiralsheep web blog. All the wordpress themes are out of date and will not update. Blech I want to draw cartoons and fix watches. Not edit PHP so the next update breaks it all over again. I think I got it somewhat stable. I guess installing and updating wordpress PHP is like working on a pocket watch or clocks. A complete waste of time. Because you will just have to do it all over again and no one cares.

At least we still have Omega. (which are watches worth wasting time on.)

 

I need better time management. There is still one A Schild apart. I need to see if I can swap some parts with the GW el rusto. as it now stops at the same place every minute. The Santa Clause watch seems to still be working.

I am thinking (baring distraction.) that it will be at least a year before I have time to look at these PWs. I really want to get that Val-72 back together. Then there are the 9 Landerons. The 351, not to mention the two 671s and the triplet 681s Did I mention the three Venus? The two lemanias? And what about the electronic stuff, the three Tag Heuers I got a week or so ago.

And of course I have thousands of words to write about all this.

 

Some of us have family pieces and only wish that someone who cared serviced them in the past. The circa 1883 18S William Ellery I had, which my sister now has, was so botched and abused that the chances of it keeping time are not great, which is a damned dirty shame.

There's something special about carrying your great-grandfather's watch that you paid to have restored after decades as your cousins' toy.

Did you know in the early days that some Swiss makers counterfieted the American makers?

 

+1

@sheepdoll has a rather dismissive attitude to American-made pocket watches. She is obviously not aware that American watchmakers, and manufacturers of watch making machinery, taught the Swiss how to manufacture a quality watch that was consistent in performance, and uniform in tolerances so that spare parts could be made available. Too bad that some folks who don’t know what they are talking about, shoot from the lip! @sheepdoll should learn about the evolution of watches before running off at the mouth as she did in her previous post. Waste your time on rusty AS 1187s and battered Swiss stuff, and leave the rest to us serious collectors,