Something new - a Waltham sock drawer pocket watch comes in
Jul 16, 2013 9:25:21 GMT -8
donciccio, cartshed, and 4 more like this
Post by seikoholic on Jul 16, 2013 9:25:21 GMT -8
These days, I get a lot of time at strange hours where all I'm doing is holding a baby. So, cruising eBay under odder and odder sets of terms lets me find things I wouldn't normally see. I drifted across a watch lot entitled "vintage watches for parts". There was nothing too special in it to my eyes, though there was a pocket watch that looked old and had an interesting set of hands on it. I could see it was a Waltham, and was probably old, like early 20th Century. And the lot was cheap, barely more than ten bucks. One bidder at that time. I thought "why not" and put a serious lowball snipe on it, like $23 bucks. I won the lot for $12.50 + shipping. Not bad, and if it didn't work out who cares. I could repackage something in the lot and get my money back, I'm sure.
Here's the auction shot:
So it arrived, and yeah it was essentially all garbage, like literal "not even worth selling" garbage. Which was great because the one piece that wasn't garbage was the pocket watch:
Hmm. Nice. Missing the seconds hand, sure, but still nice. Everything was dusty and dirty, but under that, it was what we like. That's even the original crystal as far as I can tell. Dial totally uncracked, no damage. Breuget moon hands are still blued. OK, let's look under the hood:
Huh, wow. Look at that engraving work. Big bi-metallic balance with blued Breuget overcoil hairspring and a cool star-wheel fine adjuster. And holy crap - the entire train is jeweled I think, though it's hard to tell with all the crap packed around the center wheel pivot. It didn't give me a tick, and the mainspring was stiff as hell. I put some power into it and waited. I poked at the train a bit, and it started trying to run. Not too successfully, but it was trying to go. Hmm.. that's a good sign for a watch this old and dirty. Maybe I'll rebuild it.
I didn't get too many in-process cleaning shots, but took some. Here's after cleaning - the train is going together. It's possible that this train is partially or completely gold. At the higher end (especially those with fine adjusters and fully jeweled trains) they were made with solid gold center wheels, and in some cases, solid gold trains complete. No idea if this is the case here - I'm making inquiries.
This particular example has a fully jeweled train as I said, and a ton of surface finishing work. Also, except for being dusty and dry, the movement is in amazing condition. Barely worn internally. Hell, it's barely worn externally! No servicing marks anywhere.
Here's a quick movie of the movement firing up post-cleaning. Note that the balance jewel screws haven't gone back in yet.
youtu.be/4NHw04FZLrg
Here are some final pictures taken this morning:
So, since the watch is such a happy runner, I had to do some research on it. Thankfully there's a large and dedicated Waltham database run through the NAWCC. Folks, this watch is a Model 1888 "Royal". It was made in 1898. After cleaning it's running like a dream, strong and accurate. I had no idea that pocket watches of this era could run so well, and produce such excellent numbers. It's got almost no beat error, and the two lines are parallel. This from a watch assembled by hand before the general use of electricity. The fine star adjuster on the balance makes getting precise settings easy. What I wouldn't give for something this nice on a Seiko. This watch is not only beautiful and a rare survivor, it's a completely usable timekeeper. As of this morning it's lost four seconds.
This was someone's watch - they wore it regularly but took care of it. At a certain point they put it away, and it stayed in the dark for decades, probably most of the 20th century if I had to guess. In terms of straight wear this watch looks like it was made relatively recently. We talk about sock drawer finds and drawer queens. This one is a monarch among them.
Here's the auction shot:
So it arrived, and yeah it was essentially all garbage, like literal "not even worth selling" garbage. Which was great because the one piece that wasn't garbage was the pocket watch:
Hmm. Nice. Missing the seconds hand, sure, but still nice. Everything was dusty and dirty, but under that, it was what we like. That's even the original crystal as far as I can tell. Dial totally uncracked, no damage. Breuget moon hands are still blued. OK, let's look under the hood:
Huh, wow. Look at that engraving work. Big bi-metallic balance with blued Breuget overcoil hairspring and a cool star-wheel fine adjuster. And holy crap - the entire train is jeweled I think, though it's hard to tell with all the crap packed around the center wheel pivot. It didn't give me a tick, and the mainspring was stiff as hell. I put some power into it and waited. I poked at the train a bit, and it started trying to run. Not too successfully, but it was trying to go. Hmm.. that's a good sign for a watch this old and dirty. Maybe I'll rebuild it.
I didn't get too many in-process cleaning shots, but took some. Here's after cleaning - the train is going together. It's possible that this train is partially or completely gold. At the higher end (especially those with fine adjusters and fully jeweled trains) they were made with solid gold center wheels, and in some cases, solid gold trains complete. No idea if this is the case here - I'm making inquiries.
This particular example has a fully jeweled train as I said, and a ton of surface finishing work. Also, except for being dusty and dry, the movement is in amazing condition. Barely worn internally. Hell, it's barely worn externally! No servicing marks anywhere.
Here's a quick movie of the movement firing up post-cleaning. Note that the balance jewel screws haven't gone back in yet.
youtu.be/4NHw04FZLrg
Here are some final pictures taken this morning:
So, since the watch is such a happy runner, I had to do some research on it. Thankfully there's a large and dedicated Waltham database run through the NAWCC. Folks, this watch is a Model 1888 "Royal". It was made in 1898. After cleaning it's running like a dream, strong and accurate. I had no idea that pocket watches of this era could run so well, and produce such excellent numbers. It's got almost no beat error, and the two lines are parallel. This from a watch assembled by hand before the general use of electricity. The fine star adjuster on the balance makes getting precise settings easy. What I wouldn't give for something this nice on a Seiko. This watch is not only beautiful and a rare survivor, it's a completely usable timekeeper. As of this morning it's lost four seconds.
This was someone's watch - they wore it regularly but took care of it. At a certain point they put it away, and it stayed in the dark for decades, probably most of the 20th century if I had to guess. In terms of straight wear this watch looks like it was made relatively recently. We talk about sock drawer finds and drawer queens. This one is a monarch among them.
