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Serendipity

Canuck
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Two weeks ago, a friend brought me a watch he needed serviced. The dial was heavily stained, and not at all attractive. It needed a peculiar screw for the centre wheel bridge which I didn’t happen to have. The name on the dial on his watch is Paul Buhre. This movement is a Felsa calibre 692. It is a calendar watch with the date at the 6:00 position. I went to my stash to try to locate a donor watch so I could scavenge the part I needed. Lo and behold! What do I find but a ratty Felsa calibre 692, date at 6:00, with a near mint dial! Dial name, Paul Buhre! The dial,on the donor watch is MUCH nicer than the distressed dial, plus the dial name is die struck, and gold in colour! Not printed as it is on the distressed dial. The subject watch is in a solid 18-karat gold case that weighs 21 grams.

Now, what are the chances? Time and time again, my stash has helped me out with components for scarce, obsolete, worn out antique and vintage watches I am repairing. But never such a timely discovery as THIS one! I’ll get him to send me a picture of the finished watch.
 
ghce
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Had a similar occurrence with a Roamer 44 jewel watch which needed the correct column wheel but the previous repairer obviously couldn't find the exact one and used a part from the same Roamer calibre but was slightly shorter due to differences in date and dateless movement configurations.
The workaround for the wrong part was to dish the dial inward to make up for the shorter wheel height.
The upshot was hands at weird upward pointing angles and a damaged dial.
I have never seen 2 alike dials in the Roamer 44 range and this one was unusual in that it had the less common raised applied Roamer badge and less commonly seen raised shaped indices but after a lot of searching on this hopeless case my Watchmaker managed to locate in his stash an exact identical dial in as near to perfect condition as you could expect for a 60 year old dial and parts to complete the other wise basket case watch, I don't know who was more surprised, him or me!

IMG_20240223_130443.jpg
 
Canuck
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JwRosenthal JwRosenthal
Yes- @Canuck - we need pictures!

How it is that I didn’t take a picture, I have NO idea! I have asked him to send me pictures which I will upload.
 
ahsposo
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Oh! The Mortal Sin of Omission!
 
Larry S
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Canuck Canuck
Two weeks ago, a friend brought me a watch he needed serviced. The dial was heavily stained, and not at all attractive. It needed a peculiar screw for the centre wheel bridge which I didn’t happen to have. The name on the dial on his watch is Paul Buhre. This movement is a Felsa calibre 692. It is a calendar watch with the date at the 6:00 position. I went to my stash to try to locate a donor watch so I could scavenge the part I needed. Lo and behold! What do I find but a ratty Felsa calibre 692, date at 6:00, with a near mint dial! Dial name, Paul Buhre! The dial,on the donor watch is MUCH nicer than the distressed dial, plus the dial name is die struck, and gold in colour! Not printed as it is on the distressed dial. The subject watch is in a solid 18-karat gold case that weighs 21 grams.

Now, what are the chances? Time and time again, my stash has helped me out with components for scarce, obsolete, worn out antique and vintage watches I am repairing. But never such a timely discovery as THIS one! I’ll get him to send me a picture of the finished watch.
Play the lottery tonight.
 
Canuck
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Duracuir1 Duracuir1
Bidenator
IMG_0075.jpeg

The copyrighted name BIDYNATOR was applied to the auto wind rotor on many Felsa auto wind movements. I have heard it was the movement maker Felsa that owned the name. The Felsa 690 family of movements was an early auto winder with a full 360° auto wind rotor that wound with both directions of the rotor. These movements go back to the early 1950s, to the best of my knowledge. They were very popular, very reliable, and were made by the millions.
 
Canuck
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The pictures. The watch on the right is the Felsa 692 (date at 6), name Paul Buhre printed on the dial. This was from my stash. Gold filled case. The one on the left is my friend’s watch. The case is 18-karat, movement is Felsa 692, date at 6. He got back the watch on the left, the only difference was the dial swap from the one on the right. The Paul Buhre name on the donor dial is embossed, not printed. The one on the right now has the crappy dial on it. I gave it to him for spares. (His photo, not mine!)

IMG_2140.jpeg
 
X350 XJR
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Here's mine.

2500 Centenary, weird not quite rose gold color, crown was wrong when I bought it years ago, lived with it still loved it. Pretty much gave up on finding an appropriate crown, hard enough finding one in yellow let alone this shade. Month or so ago I'm looking for something completely different in my movement stash, bingo correct crown, correct color poking out of a unrelated spare movement. Probably had the spare movement as long as the Centenary!

IMG_2725.jpg IMG_2722.jpg
 
Canuck
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It’s good to be lucky. Success is preparation met with opportunity. Call it however you will. My stash has been very good to me over all the years of pursuing this craft. The Buhre is just another example.
 
Canuck
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I had an opportunity to take a picture of the Paul Buhre, today.

IMG_2147.jpeg
 
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