Inherited Pocket Watch Collection

[CloserByFar]

Howdy,

My father recently inherited a pocket watch collection and it became my task to price the watches in order to divvy them up between Grandpa's three children. I know that mistakes were made and growing tensions between the siblings made time of the essence.

Anyways, prices where set and watches are being shipped but I have many questions that I will limit to a couple for this post.

My first question is how do I go about replacing the crystal on an OF vanguard?
It is one of the more pricey watches in the collection and my dad doesn't know I broke it yet.

My second question is does anyone know a 'pocket watch specialist' in Arizona? There are some nice watches that my family got to keep and we would like them cleaned and oiled.

Thanks and more questions to come...

[Luca]

The crystal is a little difficult because I think Waltham Vanguards are found in a variety of cases from different manufactures - though I suppose it could be that many are found in one brand of case. Regardless one often has to go by trial and error when fitting a crystal. It helps to have many on hand. The ideal crystal is one that sort of 'snaps in' with a little bit of effort and doesn't rotate around in the bezel. Often you will find crystals cemented in but these are sometimes poor fitting crystals and I've found a good many done this way that are a bit of mess. Not only should a crystal fit but it needs to be of the right style and thickness for the case --- appropriate to the era. There are beveled, thick crystals that you often find on railway watches but sometimes these are hard to find in sufficient quantity to find the right one for your watch - so people substitute the wrong kind.

Your best bet would be to send it away to a watchmaker who can replace it with the correct one from his selection of 1000s.

I don't know about watchmakers in Arizona but I wouldn't limit yourself to that area as you can send your watches by registered mail just about anywhere. Perhaps google the web for watchmakers and once you've found a few maybe you could ask for references or see if you can find any comments about them. Know that some of the highly regarded watchmakers have a backlog of work.

Good luck.

Luca

[Chicago]

This seems like a pretty good bet for the crystal replacement.

Ebay 160126434078

[Kent]

CloserByFar:

Welcome to the NAWCC Pocket Watch Message Board!

Check out What You Need To Know About Watch Repair at Wayne Schlitt's Elgin Website:
[color=brown]www.midwestcs.com/elgin/help/watch_repair.html[/colour]
[color=blue]To view, go to the [/colour][color=brown]Elgin Watch Collectors Site Home Page[/colour] [color=blue]at[/colour] [color=brown]elginwatches.org[/colour], [color=blue]then copy and paste the address in your browser's address bar and click on [/colour]'Go'.

Also, you might consider The Escapement
http://static.flickr.com/45/120095643_673b3aa186_o.jpg[/colour] (http://members.aol.com/stdwatch)
Click for info.

Whomever you pick to service your other watches can replace the crystal on the Vanguard.

Good luck,