Story of a broken watch used as a toy when aged 4 years oldT

[horologist]

The forum management may ask what has this to do with replicas and in all fairness i would not contest their decision if they were to remove this post.  Yet, I feel the need to declare that this post has an indirect relevance to why this forum has had a significant impact on my achievements to fulfill a long life dream of a horology hobby which no doubt would not have been achieved without being a member here. 

 

Before I joined this forum many years ago, all I could do was just change a battery on a quartz watch and remove a stem in some movements. I am now able to service my own movements (apart from chronographs and complicated ones) and even do minor modifications to some timepieces which I could not buy nor employ others in the mainstream profession to do for me apart from some of the highly skilled members here!  This has been mostly thanks to this forum and the countless help I have received from the altruism of the artisan genius hobbyists/professionals here!!.  I always refer to them as my masters!!! I will not start mentioning names to avoid overlooking anyone deserving equal credit.

 

Now to my story!!! This may have been the seed of my first love for watches which dates back to 1969 when I was just over 4 years old. I recall at the time my late father removing the leather  band on his watch to replace it with a fixoflex steel band. I cried my eyes out as I also wanted something around my arm like dad had..  My late mother asked dad if he had any broken watch which he could give me to console my cry.   My father was annoyed as he was unable to help me that evening.  The next day he returned from work with another fixo flex band and put it on a broken watch which he pulled out of the back shed in a junk box.  He then put it on my wrist with a smile. That was the very first watch I ever touched!   I played while  wearing it until I moved onto something else. Back then  I vaguely remember seeing a character in Hogans Heros wearing a monocole and  dad took the bezel off It with the surrounding crystal still n place for me to pretend it was a monocole,  

 

Many years later, as a mid teenager, I later found the watch again  in an old tool box without a band and with a missing lug that had broken off,  as it is a very thin brass case covered in chrome!  Out of curiosity I opened the back to see inside  I was surprised  that it still had a shiny unmolested movement.  I kept it as a memento of having had it for all those years before  and also my love for timepieces helped my decision to keep it.  I had asked my late father about its origin and said it was given to him as a gift from his brother when leaving for Australia in early 1950 which stopped working in  September 1955 when the winding stem got stripped from rust and no longer wound! 

 

In the last 3 years during the Covid break I decided to pull it apart and had the dial restored with the family name and the initials of both my sons on it.   I don’t remember what brand it was but it is powered by a 15 jewel FHF 26!  I  was able to locate on ebay an identical donor mid case with a complete lug, bezel hands, winding stem and a crystal.  I tried to keep as many of the original parts of it as possible! I managed to pull the movement apart and gave it a home amateur service.  

 

I was disappointed that the balance staff was broken so I managed to find a new complete balance from a donor movement which is the only part of the movement that is not original  in the movement, Sadly I was unable to change the balance staff due to lack of tools and also no watchmaker was interested in replacing the balance staff due to the economics of finding a complete balance already working.  I wanted to keep it  as close as to the originality of the movement.  It is running but not accurately and sometimes stops after a few hours which is good enough for me as it was just a piece of junk in a tool box once used as a toy by a 4 year old and now a working watch again!!!!.   It may need a new mainspring as it had been stagnant and  half wound in 68 years possibly taking shape to remain this way

 

What is it worth?  Most likely nothing as a similar one sells on ebay between $60 to $150. For me it's a piece of history which goes back to my earliest recollection of my love for wristwatches!  Thanks to skills acquired here, I was able to resurrect it. Maybe I should have also had Lazzarus printed on the dial!!  LOL!!.  Thanks for lending me an ear to this long read!

photo of original  and final amateur restoration

[automatico]

[horologist]

Thanks! 

can also happily say that I got to fine tune it and is running well with a good power reserve of more than 30 hours!  Mainspring had stood stationary since James Dean still alive!
It definitely exceeded my expectation for something I wore while playing in the sand and the mud as 4 year old!

[Timelord]

That is so impressive!!!  We hear about a lot of car restorations and other items sitting in places for decades but something like this is so unique!!!   

 

A broken watch once used as a toy and to survive to run again in almost 70 years is something one would not even expect on Discovery channel!!  The value of that watch cannot be measured in monetary value, but far more beyond that.  A life experience!!!  Thanks for sharing!!!