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WRUW Today?

marcn
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PP 5227R - Dedicated to my dad on father’s day - He would not have approved in words, but his eyes would have spoken differently. Love you, you stubborn, cranky bastard. We’ll meet again someday.

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Jones in LA
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Happy Father's Day to all the Dads on the Forum!

I'm wearing this watch today in remembrance of my dear Dad who passed away just ten days ago. Over the past five years or so this watch became one of his favourite possessions, and he wore it daily, up to the final hours of his life.

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Objectively speaking, this watch is a bit of a monstrosity at 46mm+ and is something I would never choose for myself. But my Dad absolutely loved this watch and loved talking about its techiness: solar-charged, radio-synced, etc. And my Dad was one of the original techies. He was the first in his family to leave the four-generation farmstead and go to University, eventually earning a doctorate degree. He worked for much of his career in the defense industry, but not on the engineering side: he worked initially in contract management and then became adept at running and programming the room-sized computers that were used in the 60s and 70s. He programmed in COBOL and FORTRAN. I remember when he took me on a tour of one of his computer installations and pointed out a hard disk drive that could store up to 1-Megabyte of data! (less than the storage requirement of a single iPhone image), and the whole apparatus was the size of a washing machine.

Of course, my feelings are still raw from losing our Dad so recently but wearing this watch helps me feel closer to him and helps soothe the pain of our loss. It is now one of my favourite possessions, just as it was once his.
 
8926ob
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Zapatta Zapatta
"Darling, what are you doing? People are looking at us!"


No...they're looking at this absolutely super excellent watch I'm photographing!
 
Evitzee
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This arrived just last week from Adam Lewis in Perth. Currently on a LUGS calfskin strap, but going to change for something else by GENTEEL, in a grey tone probably:
 
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Walrus
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Deck finished with vostok assistance. Odd I’m looking at it only two drops of paint on the 1.50 cent nato and very little on the watch. Wore it the entire staining process. I was not even trying not to get stain on it. I hope everyone had a good weekend mine was not a lot of fun doing this but it’s done, I’ll let it dry see if it needs another coat. It’s funny I think I paid 25 bucks for this vostok but I’d be lost doing things like this without it.
 
Canuck
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The last few posts have shown some folks wearing their late father’s watch, on Father’s Day. A nice idea that has never occurred to me in the almost 45 years since my father passed away.

This watch was produced by Bulova in 1973, so he only wore it for about 3 years. Since then it has been in my collection, but I doubt I have worn it for one month over those 44+ years. It is a Bulova Accuquartz, model 2241. Bulova was totally unprepared for the quartz watch revolution when it hit in the late 1960s. Bulova Accutron had owned the battery watch market for 15 years, from 1962. Quartz watches had such overwhelming success that Bulova lost market share, trying to compete with Accutron which were far more expensive than most quartz watches. Bulova introduced their own quartz watch, the Accuquartz circa 1971-72. It was just an Accutron, with a quartz oscillator added. The writing was on the wall. Bulova folded as a manufacturer within about 4 years after this one was made.

My late father was a watchmaker/jeweller, and a Bulova dealer. If a dealer wanted a Bulova or Accutron watch for his own use, Bulova sold you one at reduced cost, and engraved your initials on the back so you couldn’t sell it. This one has his initials on the back.

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cgaites
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Happy Father’s Day to all the dads on the forum! My beautiful wife arranged for me to take my kids for a sail earlier today (we live in Colorado, so not easy), and now I’m enjoying an Old Fashion while I grill dinner. Definitely my favorite holiday 😀

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Edited:
 
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