10 and 20 years ago

[Jerry Treiman]

I thought it might be fun to see what I was looking at one and two decades ago, so I dug down in the virtual depths of my hard drive and found these images:

On June 1, 2001 I laid my 12-size “Illinois Central” (grade 404) on my flat-bed scanner and captured this image. The two-tone damaskeening is unfortunately rather faded. I could take a better photo today, but the damaskeening would still be washed out.


On June 6, 2011 I took some photos of a new 0-size Waltham that I had just bought. These Riversides are nice and this is interesting for the mounting of the balance cap jewel from the underside of the balance cock. I would hate to try to find replacement jewels as these were not standard. Icing on the cake was an 0-size Maximus dial. (I have only recently found a lovely hunting case for this movement).

 

[Dave Coatsworth]

Fun exercise, Jerry! I can only play the 10 year part. 20 years ago, I was still in my clock collecting phase and had not yet bought my first pocket watch.

Here's a photo from June 7, 2011. An Illinois private label for Filson & Van Antwerp. IWC grade, 7 jewel.

 

[Jerry Treiman]

I took this photo 10 years ago to document a new example for me of the movements imported for the succession of Boston jewelers under the name of Bigelow. "Bigelow & Brothers" was the third name used, from around 1840 to 1846. The firm was better known in later years as Bigelow, Kennard & Co.

 

[Harold Visser]

Here's my J.J. Bigelow, I must have a soft spot for it, since I sold the majority of my Howards but I still have the Bigelow.

 

[Jerry Treiman]

Yes indeed ... you must have a soft spot for it. Enough so that you actually made a lovely case for it which you showed me once! It turns out that although Joseph Joslyn Bigelow was a watchmaker in Boston around the same time as Bigelow Brothers & Kennard (with John Bigelow, founder of that firm), and both were on Washington St., their businesses were not related. J.J. Bigelow was a 3rd cousin, once removed, to John Bigelow.

 

[Jerry Treiman]

I was pretty busy on this day 20 years ago, taking pictures (flatbed scans) of a couple of recent acquisitions. Here are a couple of the 27 pictures I took that afternoon.



I never developed a strong interest in railroad watches and long ago traded the Ball to my brother. The two Bigelow, Kennard & Co. movements came with original, but plain, cases but I uncased them for the photo session. Both are Maximus-grade. The 12-size 23j watch I had just received from a dealer in England. The 19j 0-size watch was an eBay find a month earlier.

[no watch photos from 10 years ago; I was at Mt. Vesuvius that day]

 

[Jerry Treiman]

I don't have any pictures from this date in 2001, but here are two Waltham watches I bought at this time, 20 years ago.

I bought this 12-size private-label Riverside Maximus on October 4, 2001. It is a 21-jewel model with custom finish, patented click, Ohara dial and gold case made for Bigelow Kennard & Co., probably by Jeannot & Shiebler.


I bought this 14-size Colonial-A Riverside the next day. The movement is pretty standard but the 14K case by H.W. Matalene features alternating elements of rose and green gold and his patented setting mechanism.


(both were eBay purchases)

 

[PatH]

So, curiosity got the better of me....checking back, I discovered that in early October of 2011, my purchases were rather eclectic (as always). Among other things, I added these four 1917 Waltham ads that follow Jerry's Riverside theme, as well as a flyer showing horological items that were offered by oil producers as premiums for orders.

 

[Rodney Leon]

Mine go way back past 20 years, Now I wish I had used something else then, and have since re-photographed all of them I still have, but have sold most the Key winds I had about 100 of them. I used a Polaroid 500 4x5 Film Holder in my 4x5 camera using the Polaroid sheet film available at the time. The image quality has degraded badly over the years. The old Kodachrome are still good. Here is a scan of one of the better Polaroid ones.