Day 11 WRUW Tuesday October 11 Wear A Hand Wind Watch

[cd_god]

OK

It is October 11th (somewhere)

Day 11 of the October WRUW daily theme.

Today's theme is “Wear a hand wind watch”

Automatic watches that also hand wind DO NOT qualify.

Way way back in the day you had to hand wind your watch every day.

Way way way way back in the day you had to use a special key to wind your watch.

Then people got lazy and invented the automatic watch movement.

Then the soulless CBP watches and the computers and the AI came and they almost killed them all off.

Then there was the Renaissance and the revival of mechanical watches.

Then there was the comeback of the hand wind movement using the Unitas 6497 and 6498 movements when the Circus Huge Wagon Wheel watch craze came to town.

All of this story telling reminds me of The Tell about coming back full circle.

Don't get jumped by Mr. Dead.

Jus' Sayin'

Anyone 'Member?

'Member this.

[trilo]

My only one which is currently up and running.

[raz]

One of my oldest watches (March 1963). Is a pleasure to wind and hear the 341 movement. The thick 80 micron 18k gold plated case does stand out compared to other GP watches I ve seen.

[rossr]

My 4520-8000. This needed some mechanical work, and it has a shadow on the dial where the hands must have sat for a very long time, but it was a very good pick-up.

[Rod]

1964, 5719.

[tempelkim]

Does this one count? It even needs a special key...

[leffemonster]

I’ve got a few hand winders, and this one happened to have the correct date set. 6602-5000, October ‘66.

[russtmurray]

Ok, I'm skirting the rules again. Will start off with this one.....



..then transition to this guy

[suntzu]

[HiBeat]

For a Hand Winder I'll go with this SEIKO sub-branded Brightz (oh how hoity toity) rare as hen's teeth SAGN005. The power reserve indicator can be polarizing, so many guys say it clutters the dial, etc but to me it totally makes this one a work of art.

This all-titanium hand winder is powered by the 28,800 bph 29 jewel beauty 4S29.   Nice degree of finish with a display back.

Movement rebuilt by Adrian Adrian-VTA at VTA and it makes me smile just to take it out of the box and put 'er on the wrist.

[pip]

I have a fair few vintage hand winders. This Landeron 48 chronograph is one of my favourite ones at the moment. It was a shagger when I got it, deformed hairspring and just a mess of congealed oils inside with an old a filthy mainspring.

I actually bought it as it was described as a Landeron 248. When I opened her up and found that it was the much older 48 I contacted the seller who offered to either take it back or provide a substantial discount as a part refund. Decent chap. Needless to say, I took the discount.

Full strip and clean. Ages spent on the HS and a new MS installed and she runs decently enough now. Not like new, but I didn’t polish the pivots (just a twist with soft wood) and a couple could really do with burnishing. And well, she’s old!

[inboost]

Wow, I had to dig deep for this one @cd_god! YES I remember 'The Tell' just like they told us to Cap'n Walker

I've enjoyed playing along in this contest by not looking ahead, but that caught me out today. I have no hand winders in my collection and figured I'd have to take a pass when I read the news this morning.

But then a foggy dim light in the far corners of my mind lit up and I raced to a small collection of boyhood stuff I have in a little cashbox. Sure enough, I found my Grandfather's wristwatch and indeed it is a hand wind only. Even more incredible this 90 year old watch started right up when I carefully wound it!!!

It had no bracelet and I have nothing in my inventory for a 15mm strap, even my Wife's leather banded watches are 16mm+. The soft gold case has a split lug on each side of the tiny little 28mm square watch with nails and brass wire for spring bars. After cutting those makeshift attachments away and fitting actual spring bars I came up with a roll of two-sided Velcro and made a strap. So count me in for today!

Now this thing is a treasure for sure, but it's long in the tooth and desperately hanging on. It's going to need a lot of help from me to get through the day, but I don't mind in the least. It's an honor to wear it as it will be to service it some day soon.

The case is 9ct gold and it was a house made watch of Saunders Ltd. in Sydney Australia when my Mother's side of the family hails from. The movement is Swiss and alleged by a quick glance around the internet to be an Omega? My Grandfather was a postman all of his professional career in the Sydney area, so maybe some of you senior members out there in N.S.W. have had a visit from him or spoken to him at the post office back before he retired in the early 1970s.

Here's Grandpa's last ID card with the watch on my wrist today, I bet it's been 30 years since it last ran!

I grew up in the USA, but we visited Sydney every once and a great while (We flew Pan Am - too bad I didn't have the M158-5009 back then eh dapellegrini?). I'd bet I was 6 or so when this photo was taken of us. Wow, look at all that bright red hair. You'd never know it these days, it's black where it's not grey!

Look at those hand fashioned spring bars! I know Grandpa made those himself - he was very handy. There is no doubt in my mind that I get some of my capabilities from him.

The watch was given to him on his 21st birthday by his parents, back when a watch was a big deal in coming of age.

It's a solid 9ct gold case, and soft as you'd expect.

And check out the movement, it looks like a miniature pocket watch with all the engine turning! Can anyone identify it? I've not had much time to go looking myself.

Well, that's my story for the day. Happy Handwinding day to all!

Inboost

[aac58]

This one has a MS that can only be wound manually, so... 

[small]

Day 11 Manual Wind watch.

Another watch that could tick boxes for different days.

This dainty charmer measures in at a svelte 32.5mm sans crown. A chrome cased watch, made at the time prior to the Swiss watch crisis. I place this in the early 60’s. The watch came to me through eBay kind of under the radar. Glycine had/has a good reputation although mainly for their “Airmen” or “Combat” watches, and adorned the Wrist of Astronauts on Gemini Missions. This particular watch has an ever popular as/st1686 17j movement. The mainspring was shot. I could wind it a few turns and it would start ticking away but winding too far caused it to slip.

This watch and its movement would lead me down a different rabbit hole. I was seeing this movement everywhere. I asked about it on this forum and was told it was a pretty generic movement and might be in hundreds of different watches. At the time, just prior to the Swiss crisis, everyone was making “Swiss Watches” flooding the market. It was a story of “Buy a case form here, a dial with your name on it from there, and a movement from one of the movement makers” and now you’re in the game. Might not be too far from what we see in today’s landscape, with new “Micro brands” popping up, doing homages and putting their name on the dial.

Since I started with this and needed parts the search was on. The movement as I was told was used everywhere. I have found it and cataloged it’s use on nearly 150 different watches. Some brands had the movements marked with their own Caliber Number or had their name engraved to give it some added legitimacy. The movement came in both 7 and 17 jewel configurations. Elgin referred to the 7 Jewel as their cal. 824, and the 17 j as cal 823, Gruen used cal 552. Other more recognizable brands are, Zodiac, Waltham, Wakeman, Vulcan, Technos, LeGant, Edox, Croton, Caravelle, and Ball. Many the only other movement more popular is the AS/ST 1187, that too is everywhere. Note too that beside the jewel count the only other difference from time to time is the shock absorber keeper or shock spring for the balance, from a standard Incoblac to a Kif. The incoblac far out numbering the Kif.

I keep this one in the watch box at home and it gets wrist time every now and then. I take a bit of pride in it as it was one of the first movements I worked on successfully. I ended up replacing the stem and crown, but would like a thinner crown as this one is a bit out of proportion. Looks like a “Big Crown” Oris…I have added a few Full Stainless cased watches that happen to have this movement under the hood, just as a growing “collection”. I was even gifted with an Elgin from a fellow member. That I was able to get back to running order. Collecting these has made me kind of wonder about the watch market in general. I see some very nice looking off brand watches with this or other pretty common movements listed for some pretty shocking asking prices. I even see some watches I have lost bidding to go for some higher than I thought amounts. I’m not sure if the other bidders were in it because the watch held some additional meaning and attraction or what. But knowing what is inside and the story behind, I’m just baffled. That said I have seen the very same thing with some of the 7009 Seiko’s I have been trying to buy…









Movement shot just grabbed from the net.

[59yukon01]

[cd_god]

Today's Seiko golf tip of the day: turning your left shoulder under your chin in your backswing helps you stay centered over the ball.

Kemmner Flieger

They made a 42MM and 44MM version

This one is the 42MM

Wears much larger with the all dial case.

[saldog]

[dapellegrini]

This is my black dial Sturmanksie Gagarin (first man in space) commemorative edition:





This is the only one (that I am aware of) that had an exhibition case back - and was challenging to source on the used market. It is one of 999 examples made in 2018 with the black dial. Another 999 were made with an off-white dial. Or maybe 999 were made of both, or perhaps 999 per day - who knows.  This manufacture seems to have a very loose interpretation of a limited edition.

Most examples you will find have a 3D medallion case back of Gagarin’s head in a space helmet - which I don’t care for. This one popped up on the bay with blurry pictures and was sold as NIB. When I received it there were some significant scars on the case back from a hare-brained attempt at removing the strap with massive force and a sharp object. Oh well, I would have bought it any how.

Here’s a good look at the manual wind Poljot, caliber 2609 and the battle scars inflicted by the prior owner:



For all I know that case back says TRICKED STUPID AMERICAN OUT OF MONEY, HA HA! - but it looks cool in Cyrillic.

A little bit more back story:
Unlike the American space effort, I am not aware of any marketing or branding partnerships with the Russian program. From what I understand, Yuri was just wearing his standard issue Russian Air Force wristwatch. I don’t think much (or any) thought was given to its fit or fitness for space - it was just the thing he had on his wrist as he made it 100km from the earth - which is I believe the internationally recognized minimum distance to be considered “space”. The date was April 12, 1961. His watch was an off-white dial and only 33mm in diameter. The modern commemorative is a more wearable 40mm.



Oh, and I also have the off-white dial version - perhaps a watch for a different day this mont:

[dapellegrini]

I should have added these Sturmanskie watches (until recently) used the Piljot 2609H (manual) movement.  From what I understand they had a huge stock of NOS movements and were slowly putting them in new watches, until they ran out (a couple of years ago now I think).  I'm not sure how old the stock was, but this is a 1970's movement.  Here's a closer look at this movement, for anyone interested:

17jewels.info/movements/p/poljot/poljot-2609h/

[dapellegrini]

inboost - that is an awesome and special watch!  Great photos too.  The only mention of a movement like that I found is here: mb.nawcc.org/threads/seven-jewel-waltham-610-grade.140766/ - search that page for Saunders....