Community Stories

Watches destined for the fiery furnace ...

sheepdoll
Posts
2,660
Likes
4,235
This is why I do not like gold watches.
I would have really liked that rusty Omega project watch, I have just the movement for it. I have been following this trio all week. Goodwill is probably the worst place to look for such things. They had bids of 8.99USD most of the week, then went up to around 40USD most of the day then shot up to the scrap value in the last minute.
Sadly I suspect these watches are destined for the fiery furnace And I doubt if they were branded sears or zales it would make any difference.

-j
Screen Shot 2022-09-26 at 7.13.12 PM.png Screen Shot 2022-09-26 at 7.02.33 PM.png Screen Shot 2022-09-26 at 7.01.37 PM.png
 
JwRosenthal
Posts
16,307
Likes
44,981
Yeah, just because they’re old, doesn’t mean they’re great.
 
sheepdoll
Posts
2,660
Likes
4,235
JwRosenthal JwRosenthal
Yeah, just because they’re old, doesn’t mean they’re great.
It is not about being old. It is about design and information that will be lost to history. Tastes do change. Some might even state that such things are an aquired taste. I do have a fondness for things victorian, but I certantly would not have wanted to live in the 19th century. And while I am a product of the 1960s, those are not times one would necissarily want to return to either.
Now is a rather nice time. there are some rather great oportunities for entertainment and diversions. I could have chosen to watch almost any film made in the last 120 years*, Instead I chose to visit online auctions and watch forums. It could simply be the thrill of the chase, I have plenty of projects which I could also invest time into.
-j
*Granted quite a few films and some TV programs like Dr Who have been lost, still these tend to turn up when least expected.
 
JwRosenthal
Posts
16,307
Likes
44,981
sheepdoll sheepdoll
It is not about being old. It is about design and information that will be lost to history. Tastes do change. Some might even state that such things are an aquired taste. I do have a fondness for things victorian, but I certantly would not have wanted to live in the 19th century. And while I am a product of the 1960s, those are not times one would necissarily want to return to either.
Now is a rather nice time. there are some rather great oportunities for entertainment and diversions. I could have chosen to watch almost any film made in the last 120 years*, Instead I chose to visit online auctions and watch forums. It could simply be the thrill of the chase, I have plenty of projects which I could also invest time into.
-j
*Granted quite a few films and some TV programs like Dr Who have been lost, still these tend to turn up when least expected.
Trust me, I get it. My wife has a nice collection of Ladies Omega Seamasters and cocktail watches from the 60’s, but they were all stellar examples and worth putting money into. These were not rare- so I don’t bemoan the loss of a percentage that have been neglected or abused over time. Like with any hobby, you have to separate the wheat from the chaff and keep the best,
 
sheepdoll
Posts
2,660
Likes
4,235
JwRosenthal JwRosenthal
Like with any hobby, you have to separate the wheat from the chaff and keep the best,
"Sometimes one has to be satisfied with the lesser cuts that one can afford." Which is one of the better lines in the 'Grand Budapest Hotel' film.
-j
 
dsio
Posts
33,261
Likes
37,979
I think there will still be a lot more survivors of these than some of the ladies 80s pieces. I’ve got a partially written article reviewing the worst omega ever made which is this 1980s quartz piece of gold plated junk that uses a button to set instead of a crown. It had a bad movement so I bought another, and another, and another, and another and they’re all bad. Every single one is faulty even the mint condition ones are stuffed. Those are sort of best left to rot and die though and I’m only writing about it as an illustration of how bad a condition the company was in around 1981 when it nearly died.
 
sheepdoll
Posts
2,660
Likes
4,235
dsio dsio
I think there will still be a lot more survivors of these than some of the ladies 80s pieces. I’ve got a partially written article reviewing the worst omega ever made which is this 1980s quartz piece of gold plated junk that uses a button to set instead of a crown. It had a bad movement so I bought another, and another, and another, and another and they’re all bad. Every single one is faulty even the mint condition ones are stuffed. Those are sort of best left to rot and die though and I’m only writing about it as an illustration of how bad a condition the company was in around 1981 when it nearly died.
IMG_3457.png

I have a Tissot like that. My 'watchmaker' was able to get it working again. Next to impossible to set to time with that single button. I actually wore this to the factory back in the 1990s. I do not think they were amused. On the other hand this watch has kind of grown on me. Sometimes the really bad stuff can actually seem good in a weird sort of way.
Otherwise I would not also collect APS cameras and Kodak photo CD scanners.

-j
 
padders
Posts
10,251
Likes
16,049
I’m not really sure I understand your point. You dislike gold watches because the cases have intrinsic value? Would you rather they were steel and valueless? They are not melted purely because they are gold, they are melted because they are crappy. The steel ones go into landfill, is that preferable?
 
dsio
Posts
33,261
Likes
37,979
sheepdoll sheepdoll
IMG_3457.png

I have a Tissot like that. My 'watchmaker' was able to get it working again. Next to impossible to set to time with that single button. I actually wore this to the factory back in the 1990s. I do not think they were amused. On the other hand this watch has kind of grown on me. Sometimes the really bad stuff can actually seem good in a weird sort of way.
Otherwise I would not also collect APS cameras and Kodak photo CD scanners.

-j
Yea I think with this particular Omega the factory in Bienne would probably like to just buy them all back for $50 each and hit them with a hammer so they can pretend they never made it lol

But yea it tells a story of what the company was in that time and it makes the turnaround all the more impressive. Its rock bottom in wristwatch form.
 
sheepdoll
Posts
2,660
Likes
4,235
padders padders
I’m not really sure I understand your point. You dislike gold watches because the cases have intrinsic value? Would you rather they were steel and valueless? They are not melted purely because they are gold, they are melted because they are crappy. The steel ones go into landfill, is that preferable?
And what makes them crappy? I guess I am asking who is the judge of the value of poor design? One of the examples in the OP was engraved. That means there was emotion involved.
I doubt the steel and other metals go into landfill. And if they did, yes that is preferable as someone will eventually dig them up and then make up all sorts of nonsense about what people were like in out era. Of course then they will be simple lumps of iron oxide, or if base metal some sort of copper derivative.
I guess my other point is that gold is over valued. There is nothing intrinsic about it. It is not all that rare or scarce, otherwise it could not be used in the ways it is. In electronics I throw away a trace amount of gold all the time. One day when gold was at an all time high I purchased some card connectors for a few cents each.
Here is the image again from the "Things with springs" chat again.
IMG_3456.png

The gold capped case has been badly polished. I did not even think it was gold till I looked up the ref number 566-0015. It was only in that chat that I realized that the cases were different.

Plastic on the other hand...

-j
 
padders
Posts
10,251
Likes
16,049
I think your grasp of geology is pretty shaky. I note in the other thread on gold you suggest it is so common miners can’t bothered to pick it up when it washes to the surface in Claifornia’s rivers. Well it’s over a million times less common than iron oxide pretty much everywhere in the Earths crust so I’m not certain you’ve got facts on your side. Estimates of extant mined gold vary but one suggests there is only enough on the surface to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool, another that it could make a cube 21x 21 x 21m. Hardly all that common!
Edited:
 
sheepdoll
Posts
2,660
Likes
4,235
padders padders
I think your grasp of geology is pretty shaky. I note in the other thread on gold you suggest it is so common you can’t bothered to pick it up when it washes to the surface in Claifornia’s rivers. Well it’s over a million times less common than iron oxide pretty much everywhere in the Earths crust so I’m not certain you’ve got facts on your side.

Facts? who in this era worries about facts. Some would state that this world is an illusion anyway.

Silicon is even more plentiful, so most of this is irrelevent to the subject at hand.

As an abstraction, If gold was so rare, then why are there so many detectorists in england constantly finding roman gold? It is all about perception. There are some who think there is a 1meter wrapper of gold around the iron core. Of course this is unobtanium, but gold does disolve in water and percipitates out when rivers shift.

I was once chatting with one of the top mars scientists. Yes gold has been detected on mars. (and astroids as well) Some of the discussion also delved into growing crops on mars. We both however agreed that in the long term seeds were probably of more value than gold.

My interest is in watches, and often in things that most are not interested in. Yes I could have continued the other thread (as both threads are about goodwill auctions.) I decided to start my own as the intention was more on missing out on some auctions that give one a false sense of hope that they might get something. That is simply the nature of the addiction. It is probably not all that different than playing slots or purchasing lottery tickets. Or even investing in stock and futures markets.

And yes I bougt a cheap crap watch, just becouse I could.
Screen Shot 2022-09-26 at 11.34.08 PM.png


-j
 
padders
Posts
10,251
Likes
16,049
Adjust your tin foil hat. It looks better at a jaunty angle!
Edited:
 
JwRosenthal
Posts
16,307
Likes
44,981
Like you with unloved watches, I used to buy and restore vintage stereo equipment. I would sell it at the local record shops. I was friendly with the owners and they were happy to sell record players and receivers (to sell records) and I usually either broke
even or made a few bucks on them.

I did it because I couldn’t stand seeing them go to the trash when they were perfectly viable and it made me happy to see people enjoy these things and give them a second life….but there was a threshold.

The turntable/receiver/speakers needed to be of decent enough quality to be serviceable and warrantied. If they were decent but too far gone and cheap enough, I would buy them for parts. There were some cheap-ass electronics made back in the day however and they were never meant to be of any quality- I left those where they were.
We can’t save everything, we have to make judgments on what is worth the time and effort, so we set up criteria. That criteria may be different person to person…but without it we risk becoming a hoarder. The difference between a collector and a hoarder is curation.
Edited:
 
ghce
Posts
4,469
Likes
44,719
JwRosenthal JwRosenthal
Like you with unloved watches, I used to buy and restore vintage stereo equipment. I would sell it at the local record shops. I was friendly with the owners and they were happy to sell record players and receivers (to sell records) and I usually either broke
even or made a few bucks on them.

I did it because I couldn’t stand seeing them go to the trash when they were perfectly viable and it made me happy to see people enjoy these things and give them a second life….but there was a threshold.

The turntable/receiver/speakers needed to be of decent enough quality to be serviceable and warrantied. If they were decent but too far gone and cheap enough, I would buy them for parts. There were some cheap-ass electronics made back in the day however and they were never meant to be of any quality- I left those where they were.
We can’t save everything, we have to make judgments on what is worth the time and effort, so we set up criteria. That criteria may be different person to person…but without it we risk becoming a hoarder. The difference between a collector and a hoarder is curation.

There surely was a lot of crap electronics made back in the day and I would never consider it tipping a hat to posterity to preserve or repair it, better off in landfill however vintage watches to me are different and I get immense pleasure from saving each one from landfill.
Got to admit though I do get annoyed when I see good quality electronic audio systems getting binned.
Edited:
 
Risto
Posts
1,641
Likes
5,102
I am pretty sure that at previous high gold prices many 1970s heavy gold Zenith Captains (turtle cases) ended up in jewelry gold 🙁
 
JwRosenthal
Posts
16,307
Likes
44,981
There as a 14k Mido deluxe-box, papers, dial and movement- on eBay a couple years ago. Clearly they melted the case down, it was heartbreaking. Luckily a member here bought it to complete a watch he had. Glad they at least didn’t throw that stuff out.
 
sheepdoll
Posts
2,660
Likes
4,235
Screen Shot 2022-09-28 at 11.48.16 AM.png

I was too busy yesterday to bid on this one. The last of a group of watches I was following that had low bids on them. At least it went for a decent price. If this was stainless I would have been really tempted. I do not have any tissots with that vintage era logo.
I guess my frustration on GW is tha they either get bid up fast early, or sit tempting at a low value then (properly) shoot up at the end.
 
SkunkPrince
Posts
5,636
Likes
5,800
dsio dsio
I think there will still be a lot more survivors of these than some of the ladies 80s pieces. I’ve got a partially written article reviewing the worst omega ever made which is this 1980s quartz piece of gold plated junk that uses a button to set instead of a crown. It had a bad movement so I bought another, and another, and another, and another and they’re all bad. Every single one is faulty even the mint condition ones are stuffed. Those are sort of best left to rot and die though and I’m only writing about it as an illustration of how bad a condition the company was in around 1981 when it nearly died.
Just curious, does Omega claim they will service them?
 
5 More Posts...
Sign up or log in to reply...

Similar threads

bags1971

These were destined for the bin

bags1971 Open Discussion
DaveK
DaveK
Posts
9
Views
1K
NDLaw2009

Pair of Omega Watches Destined for Scrap

NDLaw2009 Vintage Omega Watches Help, Discussion and Advice
NDLaw2009
NDLaw2009
Posts
28
Views
5K