Wanna cry?

[Steve Kosovich]

We went to my wife's home town for christmas and she told me to show the local Jeweler my automaton watch and that he had some PW's too.
He did have some nice watches,but the one that made me cry was the 950B he had. He told me a guy came into his shop and asked him what he would give for it or he would put it in his yard sale, so the jeweler offered him $100 for it and the guy accepted it. (sigh) made tears come to my eyes. The guy is 83 yrs old and still has hands steady enough to do watch repair. We also had a nice discussion on watches etc.

[Steve Kosovich]

We went to my wife's home town for christmas and she told me to show the local Jeweler my automaton watch and that he had some PW's too.
He did have some nice watches,but the one that made me cry was the 950B he had. He told me a guy came into his shop and asked him what he would give for it or he would put it in his yard sale, so the jeweler offered him $100 for it and the guy accepted it. (sigh) made tears come to my eyes. The guy is 83 yrs old and still has hands steady enough to do watch repair. We also had a nice discussion on watches etc.

[doug sinclair]

Steve,

Many years ago, my wife and I visited a very dear, elderly lady friend in the nursing home where she was living. She was the widow of a fellow who had been a section foreman for the Canadian National Railway for all of the years after he emigrated to Canada from the Ukraine. I asked her about his railroad watch which was a Hamilton 992. She told me that, when she was down-sizing to move to the nursing home, a lot of stuff was given to family, a lot of stuff sold at a yard sale, and some items she didn't know what to do with and that nobody seemed interested in, went to the------------ landfill! Including his Hamilton 992!

[Steve Kosovich]

OH crap!!!......by the way your dog avatar looks just like our Lasa Apso when she barks,reminds me of a coyote howling.

[doug sinclair]

Steve,

Now that I think of it, two of us were recently involved in an "antiques road show" fund raiser for a local fraternal organization. One of the people that came was a girl, maybe in her mid-20s, dressed in very dirty coveralls, a dirty winter jacket with very luminous vest over it, a heavy plaid wool peaked cap with ear covers, very dirty gloves and hands, and a very outdoorsy look about her complexion. She had two watches to show us. One was a '40s vintage Oyster in decent shape, and the other was a generic Swiss, also in decent shape. This young lady had taken a break from her job on a City Sanitation truck to bring these watches to us. She had found them in a GARBAGE CAN!

"Smudge" is my wife's cairn terrier (as in Toto from the wizard of Oz)

[Greg Davis]

You call those tear-jerkers?

Recently I received a Tremont watch in the mail that was disassembled and the parts glued to a piece of construction paper to create a display. The display wasn't attractive, so I decided to remove the parts and make an attempt at reassembly. Unfortunately, the pivots for the gears were all missing (save one), so the reassembly didn't get very far. As it turns out, I have another Tremont parts movement that was missing the balance cock. I might be able to merge the two and have a complete movement, but that's a project for the future... when I have a proper hairspring stud for the cock.

It occurs to me to wonder what goes on in someone's mind when they thoroughly break down a watch and put glue on the parts. You know, I could almost understand it if they made a pretty shadow box display of the movement parts, but to glue the parts to construction paper after removing the pivots just brings tears to my eyes.

- Greg

[cpatrick]

hi doug,
i have a story simular to yours. this guy where i work does garage cleanouts, {hauls stuff off} i asked him if he comes across any old pocket watches and said yes that the people said belonged to there grandfather and so i asked what he did with them!
his reply: throw them away!!
i said next one he finds that i would buy it!!!
waiting...
cyril

[Jon Hanson]

Once I acquired a very old coll'd, one with which I was very familiar. When I purchased the collection, the owner was in the process of throwing out tons of personal things, including a Waltham Crystal plate movement which they thought was a piece of glass!:mad: