Watch Out or Watch on? Pt 2.

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dPero

Part of the Furniture Now
Jan 15, 2022
954
11,016
39
Stafilic
It’s a $18 rebuilt Citizen, on a slow boat I suppose from India. Still in transit,

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It has a full return guarantee.

When you feel blue, think about having to buy and rebuild a watch and sell it on the other side of the world guaranteed for $18.:)

Or course, the shipping to India might be more than $18.:)
You will have to pay to repair that watch, at the end will cost you 300$. Is this winding mechanisam?
 

Bengel

Lifer
Sep 20, 2019
3,159
14,460
Great new, totally unique, brick and mortar boutique in Cleveland
I would love to see this one day. If you’re near drop in and report on it.
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,837
13,910
Humansville Missouri
This $62 Invicta Speedway arrived today, from Jomashop. I have a 30 day return and a warranty. It is as heavy, well polished and blingy as any watch I’ve ever owned with a Japanese quartz chronograph movement that might last until Judgement Day.

You can buy a solid stainless steel, heavy watch with a solid link stainless bracelet for the price of a tank of gasoline.

When a tank of gasoline cost ten dollars there is no way in hell a good watch only cost ten dollars.


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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,837
13,910
Humansville Missouri
Spied at the Auto Show, a Porsche Design watch. Anybody know who's makes them?

It seems a Porsche Design watch is a luxury brand of watches with links to Porsche cars.


Here’s the thing about watches.

Would you like a rugged, reliable time piece that works like a crowbar?

This is the most selling watch in history and by far the most sold watch today.

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So you say, but I want a really nice watch that will last a lifetime and my kids inherit it.

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I own a Seiko movement stainless watch I paid about $37.50 for in 1979.


It still works today and this is the same basic watch.

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How about a honestly world class mechanical automatic men’s business watch? One that anyone should be proud of and will last for generations if serviced.


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And a simple plastic quartz watch, complete, costs less than having the battery replaced.

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Men have worn watches for centuries.

A decent, good watch has never been cheaper.

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And a prestigious watch has never been more expensive.

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briarblues

Can't Leave
Aug 3, 2017
395
620
This is the latest addition to my collection. A Core Seven Sins. The date wheel is not the date. Each day up comes another of the 7 deadly sins. Thought it was an interesting piece.7sins.jpg
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,837
13,910
Humansville Missouri
I’m a watch accumulator, not a watch collector. A collector has a plan and a purpose, and I just buy cool old watches at estate auctions.

In a lot of ways, a high grade watch was like a high grade pipe, over a century ago.

The best were obscenely expensive. Usually the owner took meticulous care of what might have been a gift on a special occasion.

I won this Waltham watch for twenty dollars and maybe spent a hundred getting it cleaned, oiled, and gone over by a watchmaker about twenty years ago.

It was made in 1891, cased in 1892, is the highest $70 grade Crescent Street in a $30 quality gold filled hunter case, and has a glass porcelain double sunk dial in perfect condition. It’s still not wildly valuable, but it keeps time to a couple of seconds a day and ought to be good for centuries to come if not just beat to death.

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That watch was fifteen jewels, and in 1891 was Waltham’s highest grade and most expensive watch.

Hamilton watches had 17 jewels, starting in 1893, caused Waltham and Elgin and Howard and other makers to match them for jewel count.

A 17 jewel watch gets two hole jewels for the wheel for the hour hand.

The hour hand turns twice a day, or 730 turns a year. If Fred Hert’s watch has run continually for 132 years that’s less than 100,000 turns on the hour hand. It needs oil, but not really a set of jewel bearings.

That balance wheel that has two hole jewels for bearings and two cap jewels to hold oil and keep it in one place, turns 18,000 times an hour, or 432,000 turns each day.

It is an absolute industrial miracle that balance wheel spins over 150 million times a year, and has spun billions of times and is still as accurate as a modern high grade watch.

And they figured that all out in 1883 and Waltham made over five million 1883 model movements, the most of any model of American watch.


And by 1940 Hamilton made a 992B that’s not as ornate, but it is far more durable and more accurate, but at two or three seconds a day there wasn’t a lot of room left to improve accuracy.

My 992B, worth about $300 at most.

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If you want a railroad grade American watch and don’t have one I can’t recommend a Hamilton 992B enough.

Every part on a 992B is available and any good watchmaker can fix one. The 992B was made until 1969 and was the last official railroad watch, and every watchmaker had modern parts.

If Fred Hert’s watch breaks down, the last parts were made in 1917 and it takes a master watchmaker to fix one.
 
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ssjones

Moderator
Staff member
May 11, 2011
18,448
11,357
Maryland
postimg.cc
This is the latest addition to my collection. A Core Seven Sins. The date wheel is not the date. Each day up comes another of the 7 deadly sins. Thought it was an interesting piece.View attachment 290998
Core has some interesting designs, most not for the shy. You made a great choice!
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,837
13,910
Humansville Missouri
@Briar Lee I bought this exact same watch from TEMU and all I can say is that you get what you pay for.

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I bought it too.

Mine works. It’s a brand new “dollar watch”



By chance I bought a $100 grade Waltham watch at an auction twenty years ago, and I might have hundred invested. It was made in 1891.

This art object that tells time is chock full of parts that cost a dollar or more in 1891.


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Men have carried pocket watches for five centuries.

Waltham made the first truly industrial watch with machine made parts in 1857. Abraham Lincoln owned one, used in the recent movie. It’s accurate to less than minute a day.

By 1883 Waltham was making the watch I bought at the auction that is accurate to a minute a month, in the higher grades.

The little two dollar Chinese plastic watch I bought is accurate to a minute every four months.

It is an industrial miracle it actually works at all.

Paying to have the battery changed buys several new ones.
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,837
13,910
Humansville Missouri
Just don't get it wet.




👍

In a month or two (seriously) this $7 watch ought to arrive from China that should be waterproof enough to shower with at least.

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Talk about industrial miracles, the Chinese can gather up all the raw material for the parts, including electronics and a watch battery, and manufacture a beautiful homage watch that looks like a Submariner and ship it across the Pacific Ocean at a profit, for less money than having the battery changed at a jewelry shop.

It even has a quick set date with magnifier window, on an oyster case.


For $7 I’ll get a watch with a movement that I can replace for $4 (if I’m handy with watchmaker tools) if it needs it.

But $75 buys a Chinese homage Submariner with a Japanese Seiko NH35 and solid link bracelet and 200 meter waterproof oyster case, that if you took care of it could still be running in a hundred years.

I own one of these about 15 years old that had a Chinese automatic movement instead of the more desirable NH35. It keeps excellent time and still looks and works as new.

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I’ve read multiple places over the years that every watch, ever sold, (except the insanely highest priced ones) was sold on a three times markup.

So when Abe Lincoln paid a hundred dollars for his Waltham, Waltham (and the maker of the case) spent $33 to make it and got $66 wholesale, and Lincoln’s jeweler made $33 profit.

The cost to make a watch includes research and development and advertising too.

But the raw material costs in Switzerland and China are roughly the same. The difference is skill and labor, and marketing costs.

This $13,000 real Rolex (assuming it’s not a fake) has only a few dollars worth of steel and cost 4,333 to make, a very large percentage of which was spent on advertising the brand.

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The geniune Rolex equals the accuracy of a 1940 Hamilton 992B or exceeds it a little.

The real Rolex case is no doubt a little better finshed than a $75 copy, and the links will have screws.

What concerns Rolex and other luxury brands is high quality outright counterfeit watches.

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