I have one gold watch I got for scrap price (in like 1996.) A tiny ladies saffette with 8 diamonds. Probably should have purchaced more. And the Gent's sizes as well. Gold though is not my color. I am more mercurial preferring silver and the moon.
In the Jewry classes I think gold was around 300 or so at the time. I played about with the stuff. May have some scrap bezel wire somewhere.
I did look into casemaking. Which in my opinion is at a similar level to hairspring work.
The San Francisco chapter of the NAWCC was founded and named for a Dr. Stevens. I do not remember his first name. His picture was on the membership cards and badges. He also was part of the California Academy of Science. Known to most as the 'Aquarium' This is now a high value 'Amusment Park.' aka Tourist trap with like a 50USD admission price.
Dr Stevens was a 'Dentist.' who liked to collect rocks and mineral samples. His customers liked to pay him in kind. Clocks, watches etc. He would then throw the mechanics out and use the cases to display his 'gems.'
Then as the story goes, one day he looked at a movement and wanted to know who Breguet was as the watch was rather nice. Some of the fancy clocks where made by a guy named 'Merlin' and had elephants on them. So like many before and after he became a proponent of 'Preservation.'
By the time I became active in the chapter (as Secretary.) The city wanted to sell this collection and pay their salaries for a month. Thing is that the will forbid this. The Academy however had changed is mission to being a 'Natural History' or Anthropology museum. Technical Science they said was the purview of the Explorotorium. The Academy also wanted to re-write some of its dark history. (There was an optical shop in the basement. for the planetarium) This was used to manufacture Binoculars for the War, and possibly Norton Bomb sites.
Ironically the Explorotorium was founded by Frank Oppenheimer.
Eventually through the work of other chapter members, the collection was offered as a permanent loan to the National Museum in Columbia PA. When I was there in the early 2000s about one in every three Items was credited to this collection.
When I saw the collection in the 1990s it was on the second floor of the academy. Viewable by invitation only. The watches were in a museum safe. Some of the watches were probably in the million dollar range. A similar collection in Chicago was broken up and sold around that time.
The real tragedy of this story is that this stuff was not on display. To inspire other children such as myself. I sort of remember it. But by the time I was in the process of learning more, it was not there to inspire others.
There was also a change, to teach fear. As fear is more exiting and emotional than anything else. Much of what the Academy now teaches is fear. That we must be afraid of technology lest it destroy our world. Nature is something that must be feared and not changed or tamed.
This my be why I dislike gold. Gold is also used to misrepresent things.
There is another irony as well. What also relates to Executive Order 6102. Metals like copper tin, lead and mercury were needed for the war effort. So the magnets for the cyclotrons (mostly at Oak Ridge, but probably Hanford as well. were wound with silver (and gold wire.) This was tracked as carefully as the tubealloy these machines were making.
At one time I thought the 1943 house I live in might have silver wiring. (it oxidizes black.) but when I cut into it it is copper.
Few people remember the Hunt Brothers. New Gold mines are open every day. In the 1970s no new silver mines had been opened since 1913 or so. By coincidence. the main user of silver (coliodial photography.) Switched to digital. Silver is also easy to recover from wastewater and mine tailing. It was really silver that made San Francisco, the powerhouse it is. And that silver came mostly from Nevada.
Silver gets scrapped, because like the moon it turns black over time. Which I find an interesting coincidence.
Hans Anderson's story about the dog and the soldier, probably puts it best. Although copper probably in the long run is the best investment. Especially in times of war.
Anderson also wrote a story called 'The most amazing thing.' Not one of his better known stories (an allegory for this topic.) To save time I link the wiki (and see the title translation is slightly different from copy I had.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Incredible_Thing
