WRUW Today?

Wittnauer

Bit the bullet (I just have no patience) and bought a decimal bezel on the grey market (new in packaging). No regrets at all:

Enjoying a return engagement of the gold Glycine today. I am running it for several days to test accuracy.

Last Friday I retrieved it from the watchmaker after a service and a dial swap in favor of a nice original dial found on Ebay after years of searching. Gold scrapping must have killed off a great many of these Glycine 18-jewel watches for these dials are commonly seen on Ebay in various stages of degradation, with nary a nice one to be had until recently when I purchased a movement with dial.

This is the original vintage watch that fired my interest in all things vintage watches and caused the opening of the Home For Wayward Watches.

Sometime just prior to 1983 when they moved to town, my step-grandfather gave me a World War II vintage .50 ammunition box full of rifle cartridge hand loading dies, other hand loading tools, bullet casting equipment, rusty pliers, screwdrivers, and a small hammer. It had. belonged to his son-in-law who was an Air Force test pilot back in the late 1940s, early 1950s. He was killed in a crash at Edwards AFB in 1951. The fellow had a hobby of shooting sports and cartridge reloading. The ammo box's contents had belonged to him.

This 18kt green gold Glycine 18-jewel dress watch was rattling around in the bottom of this box of rusty tools, its dried out strap crumbled loose from its spring bar on one side. The soft 18kt gold case of the watch was amazingly unspoiled by the long storage mistreatment. I wound it up and it ran so had a jeweler put the water snake strap on it and wore it off and on for years until I wised up and had it serviced the first time.

Pappaw didn't know the watch was in the ammo box, knew nothing about the watch, but assumed it had been his son-in-law's. As Pappaw had four money grubbing children, including the Air Force pilot's widow I asked him if he wanted the watch back when I discovered it in the junk and realized that it was solid gold. Pappaw said he didn't care about it, didn't want it and I should keep it.

After joining the Forum I learned more about re-dials and began to look critically at this watch and determined that the dial was not factory original with incorrect font and generally poorly redone sub-dial. I really liked the vintage style of the case, but began to wear the watch less and less. A second service along the way resulted in the watch keeping uneven time so it has mostly sat unworn in recent time.

Here's an old WRUW shot of it taken 10 years ago.

What a great story and a lovely watch. The replacement dial was a lucky find.

You have to be prepared to play a long game, as you have, when it comes to restoring vintage watches 👏👏👏

Wacky 70s Ricoh World Timer

We have had a flood warning but it’s not raining. One of those dreary days but things seem ok.

Wearing the Cincinnatus today.

Good afternoon all. It’s a beautiful watch and one of my favorites strap - a golden dyed alligator from Artisan Straps in Australia.