Posted 9 years ago
SpiritBear
(813 items)
My niece over-wound my old pocket watch, which is a stunning silver-plated piece with glass back to see the mechanisms (happy 16th birthday to me those few years ago.)
So for a year I've been without one, till yesterday.
At Goodwill, when checking out with a book for me and a bowl my mom loved, I saw two pocket-watches in the glass display. Asking to see them, I could immediately tell one was over-wound and the other (this one) may have a chance.
So I picked up this small wind-up after talking to the lady and trying to make it work (I wound it a little, rocked it, but got nothing beyond 1 tick.) The back refused to come off, but at home I got it off after prying it with a knife.
The watch I had figured to be 1970s based on the design of the back and "antimagnetic", and I may be right.
It was made by Remex LTD out of Hong Kong, which made "high precision" (they lied and got sued for it) watches in the '70s and '80s. Their mechanisms are found in a lot of fake, vintage Rolex watches.
Eventually I got the watch working, albeit you gotta shake it to get it going when it has been rewound (it died at 5 this morning.)
At first it would yesterday go for ten minutes then die. After a while it would go till moved, then die. Then it kept fairly accurate time till I noticed after a few hours of fairly accurate running that the seconds began to run slower and slower-- yet the main hands seem to keep fairly accurate.
Over all, I cannot complain as it was 99 cents and a wind-up. But is there any way, without sending it in, that I could make it work better? It stopped twice today due to normal movements during work. Yet more movement makes it work.
It has been going all day beyond the couple stops, though, and is keeping time well.
