Hi all, I bought this at a pawn shop in El Paso, Texas passing through on the way to our new home in Austin. $100! What do you think?!
Ord Dept watch- mine says hi. That may actually be the sterling silver case (they were chome plated). Brass was more important for the war effort that silver so, so some were cased in sterling. If so- you’re a lucky duck.
I tried to negotiate down to $90 and he said "it's worth $250 on eBay, but I don't eBay" *shrug*. I'm pretty sure it's chrome-plated brass. I sold my gg-w-113 not long ago, and was missing it, but not anymore. This is much cooler!
Always chrome plated, but usually over brass or pot metal which pits horribly. When you see smooth warm-toned metal Peeking out of the chrome plating under the lugs instead of a pitted mess of corrosion- that’s a sign it may be a silver one. This is the way they usually look- if you’re lucky His is way better than that
I'll check when I get home. I didn't examine it too closely, but I thought I saw gold toned metal showing through on the sides. I didn't think brass pits though. Base metal, sure, but I thought brass was corrosion resistant
I bet it was worn by one of those commandos who landed at D-day and scaled the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc and went around blowing up Nazi gun positions with hand grenades
Ok, my heart is about to jump out of my throat... I think it's silver, but I'm having a hard time telling for sure. I think what I mistook for brass showing through worn down plating might just be a complete absence of plating. It's most noticeable around the crown. Under the crown, where nothing can touch it, the plating is fully intact, and there's a stark difference with the metal next to it. The exposed case metal had a warm hue, but not brassy. Most noticeably, I don't see any clear signs of exposed brass, so... I think I struck gold... errrr.... silver
That's an awesome find, The pawn shops around here think they are on "antiques roadshow" and they hit the jackpot with every item, I bet it would be $800 around here.
Wow very nice find. Silver or no silver I’d be very pleased to find that. Great condition for a pawn shop find. I went to a pawn shop recently and he had what I think was a decent assortment of watches in the case. I was waiting to ask the owner some questions but he was busing lowballing a guy selling silver bullion. The poor dude selling the silver had very poor English and was believing all the BS the pawn shop guy was telling him about silver being hard to move and he could only give him 10 bucks under spot. I appreciate the guy running the store has bills to pay but his line of BS started making me almost physically ill so I walked out, I don’t want to give any of my money to someone who takes advantage of people like that, cool you found a decent place
Here is a silver one for reference- no plating on it. May have come that way, although I have seen the silver plated. The A11 cases were recycled for the early ORD watches with a different back https://omegaforums.net/threads/194...a11-sterling-silver-cased-pilots-watch.37511/
Yes! I heard Texans are just thrilled about all the California refugees coming to their state. Dust bowl in reverse! Just a temporary move for me, though, to sell stock before moving elsewhere Back to watches, I really have no idea if it's silver, but it could be. Was the brass used in that era golden like the brass of a chandelier, or was it a whiter alloy?