Watch story thread

Canuck

Here I am again, ready or not.

A bit of background. The Bulova Watch Co. was incorporated in 1923, by Joseph Bulova. Bulova was one of the watch companies that helped unseat the American watch manufacturers in the 1920s by its clever and timely advertising. Joseph Bulova was replaced by his son Arde Bulova, at the time of Joseph’s death circa 1938. It was Arde Bulova that was largely responsible for building the Bulova Watch Co., into the power house it became.

My late father had a jewellery store from 1946 until he closed it in 1974. He carried Bulova watches. An early venture by Bulova in the inexpensive watch market was in the 1950s. The company was selling Bulova and Westfield watches, but they felt they were missing out by not having a watch line to compete with Timex. They introduced a brand of watch called ARDAY, named after Arde Bulova.

When the Arday was introduced, the Bulova Canada president was Robert Day! R Day for short. My father had the Arday line in his store. I recall a day when the area representative for Bulova, and Robert Day were in my father’s store. Robert Day jokingly mentioned that the Arday Watch was named after him.

Until recently, I had an Arday gent’s Watch. It had a Japanese copy of a popular Swiss movement in a chrome case, composition leather strap, and in the mid 1950s, it sold for $12.95. I happened to post an item on the Omega board, in 2017, and I told the story about Robert Day and the Arday Watch. In 2018, a young man in Ontario (Canada) happened to Google the name of his grandfather.......none other than Robert Day! He located the item I had uploaded to the Omega board. He sent me a PM. The story as I told it was totally new to him. He asked if I still had the watch. I did. He was soon to be married, and all his family would be there, and he wanted to buy the watch, if I would part with it. I sold it to him for $50.00. Here is the watch.

The first picture is the Arday, face up. The second picture is the Japanese copy of the Swiss FHF 72 (Font) movement in the Arday. The third picture is of Robert Day, former president of Bulova, Canada, after he retired, chatting with his son (father of the new owner of the watch), and the fourth picture is Robert Day’s grandson wearing his Arday Watch. He had a grand time regaling his relatives with this story, while wearing the watch on his wrist.

Canuck

Saturday night. Here’s one with a difference. Many years ago, I took the notion that I wanted a mechanical watch that runs sdrawkcab. How else but to modify an existing watch. Well, actually two watches. Achieving such a feat is not simply a matter of turning the mainspring the other way around.

While the mainspring has to be reversed in its barrel, the barrel arbor which turns when the watch is wound, has to turn in reverse to wind the mainspring. This was done by using the core from one mainspring barrel arbor, and removing the hub from a second barrel arbor, machining it, reversing the altered hub, and staking it onto the core of the modified one. Now the task is to modify the winding mechanism to wind the barrel arbor sdrawkcab. This was done by reducing the size of the winding gears, and introducing an idler gear. Then the escape wheel had to be removed from its arbor, flipped over, and staked on again. Same with the pallets. I had a dial finisher make a reverse dial for me. Once I began to show the watch around, many couldn’t believe it was a mechanical movement. Many suggested it might be a quartz movement modified to run sdrawkcab. So I cut a hole in the case back and fitted a mineral crystal. I have fun with it. Surprisingly, children are better at recognizing that the seconds hand travels sdrawkcab, than adults are. 😀

lindo

On international holidays since then I have never taken a good watch - just a timekeeper.

Canuck

Sunday afternoon. Time for another watch story. These photos were taken in the early 1980s, and aren’t great. But you’ll get the idea.

In about 1983, I was managing a jewellery store. I hired a young fellow that was experienced in gems, though he’d never worked in a jewellery store. When he found out I was a watchmaker, he told me about a watch he had inherited from his grandfather in the early 1970s. The watch had been through a house fire and was a basket case. I asked him to bring the watch. It indeed WAS a basket case!

The story is his grandfather had been a railroader. He had a Keystone Howard series 5, 19-jewel pocket watch. I don’t recall the details of how the fire started, and whether he was home. But next day, after the fire was out, he managed to get into what was left of his house to search for important items such as his pocket watch. He found it on the floor beneath what had been a bedside table.

When I had a look at the watch, I recognized that it was too far gone. The answer would have to be a donor watch. We put out the word in the watch collector community which bore fruit. Several months later, a series 5 movement came our way. Crappy dial, no case, but those were not problems.

I have numbered the pictures to give a bit of sequence, but I am not certain they will be in sequence when you see the pictures.

#1 is the rusted Howard movement.
#2 is the pillar place when the watch was stripped.
#3 is the mainspring barrel bridge, mainspring barrel, and mainspring.
#4 is the bridge over the train wheels, and the train wheels.
#5 there is no #5
#6 is the donor Howard series 5 movement, the serial number is 22 numbers away from the ruined one,
#7 is the restored Howard when I finished it. New hands & crystal, enamel dial cleaned, case polished.
#8 is the donor movement in the original case when I was done.

s.