Those are the best pics I have of the watch, but I’ll try to take some closer ones. I know it was made in the US in 1901. As that predates my grandmother (and her family could not, at the time, afford such a thing) I’m fairly sure she bought it as an estate piece, much later in her life. My Mom didn’t remember any details. In fact she had given it little thought until I noticed it in her safe deposit box, when I took her to the bank for some records. As I am the only member of the family with any interest in pocket watches, I asked her for it and she was willing to give it to me. It was not working at the time, but I had it restored.
I don’t wear a watch very often, but do on the weekends and when on vacation. This is my favorite watch to wear. It’s a Russian made Vostok Amphibian diver, it’s an automatic, that keeps time pretty accurate. I don’t need to worry about it if I’m on the boat, or want to go swimming. I like Russian straight razors, watches, and firearms. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I am thinking of buying a new watch. I have narrowed it down to a Ball Trainmaster Legend or a Ball Engineer II Ohio for a little more money. The Legend only has the date and the Engineer has day and date. I'm leaning toward day and date at the moment. I already own two good watches, but I just seem to have a desire for one of these. I already own a Breitling Aerospace that is about 15 years old and a Tag Heur Formula 1 that is less than five years old. Can someone either talk me out of this or tell me why I really need one of these Ball watches.
Read this in today's Wall Street Journey. Found it rather strange. WSJ had a paywall, so did a paste and copy. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-men-are-wearing-watches-that-dont-tell-time-1531155881 THOUGH HE FREQUENTLY WORE a Cartier Tank watch, Andy Warhol didn’t use it to keep the time. “I wear a Tank because it’s the watch to wear,” Mr. Warhol once said, according to a September 2017 article in the New York Times. He would never even wind his wristwatch—it was for looks, not to look at. Today, it seems, style-conscious men are adopting the Pop artist’s perspective, treating their increasingly redundant wristwatches more like jewelry than a tool—a move that traditionalists might instinctively want to ridicule. Judson Lee, 38, a director at an advertising agency in Fayetteville, Ark., owns three watches but almost never sets them. All of his timepieces are mechanical and therefore require winding for an accurate read, unlike quartz watches which can dependably rely on a battery. He thinks of each watch as “an object of style,” an accessory that rounds out an outfit as a bracelet would. He wasn’t always indifferent to conventional timekeeping: “Pre-iPhone I certainly set them, kept them at the correct time and date, all that jazz,” he said. These days, when he wants to check the hour of day, he simply takes out his iPhone. With smartphones practically glued to our palms at all times and smartwatches muscling in, traditional timepieces are just no longer as vital as they once were in any practical sense. Fears among watch execs that the Apple Watch, introduced in 2015, would snatch up wrist real estate were confirmed in the fourth quarter of 2017 when industry researcher Canalys and IDC reported that Apple sold more watches than the entire Swiss watch industry combined. Ramsey Hidmi, 28, who works in asset management in Boston, said that few people he knows wear a watch at all, “and if they do, it’s an Apple Watch.” An outlier among them, Mr. Hidmi straps on a 12-year-old Rolex that he inherited from his father. Not that he ever bothers to set the time. “It’s an heirloom piece,” said Mr. Hidmi. It’s not just casual wearers who rationalize strapping on comatose tickers, though. “I rely on my phone to tell me the time and I’m a mechanical watch collector,” said James Lamdin, the founder of Analog/Shift, a vintage watch retailer in New York City. With an extensive collection at his disposal, Mr. Lamdin sometimes switches watches multiple times a day, and he doesn’t pause to set each one. It’s more accurate just to check his phone. “Any digital time-keeping device, be it a phone or a G-Shock is going to keep much better time than any mechanical watch, no matter how high-grade,” he said, alluding to the fact that mechanical watches tend to speed up or slow down as the day goes on. “One does not wear a vintage watch to tell the time. You wear a vintage watch to experience the passage of time,” declared Mr. Lamdin, obliquely referring to an older watch’s potential to accrue value over the years. Mr. Lamdin said he’s seen more “fashion forward” types gravitating towards that aged look of a vintage mechanical watch, with little interest in the ticking cogs beneath the glass. “It tends to be some of the super-fashiony maven people who are all about style,” he said of men who go that route, adding that he’s also seen collectors who will buy a nonfunctioning watch and wear it without having it properly serviced simply because they like it as a “statement piece.” To most sane humans, this might seem an absurd way to think about a watch, especially when mechanical timepieces can cost as much as a mid-tier BMW sedan. Like wearing glasses to appear bookish when you’re perfectly sighted, there is something pretentious about strapping on an idle timepiece you don’t need. It’s pure flash, telegraphing status but just a pose. Yet in all fairness, most men’s accessories don’t serve a purpose beyond looks. Ties and pocket squares are worn because they look pretty and add polish and, yes, status. If an iPhone or a computer clock can do a better job than a watch, then perhaps it’s entirely defensible to focus on the watch’s traditional second duty as a pure accessory. “At this stage [a watch] is really like a nice pair of socks, because it brings the look together and makes a man look more finished,” said Basha Singh, the director of made-to-measure and VIP styling at Ralph Lauren’s flagship location in New York. Each morning, Mr. Singh straps on one of his handful of watches with a suit and tie for work, but more often than not, that watch is only right twice a day. MORE IN STYLE & FASHION Shorts Are (Finally) in Fashion June 28, 2018
That was an interesting article. Thanks for sharing it, and thank goodness everyone is different. I've loved mechanical wristwatches since I was a kid in the 1970s, and I still like 'em. As an engineer, I find the design and operation of the mechanical movements to be amazing. I don't mind that my mechanical watch is sometimes a couple minutes off. My life isn't synchronized to Greenwich Mean Time. I like what I like, and I don't wear them for a fashion statement. If you saw how I dressed, you'd know what I mean. If I see someone wearing a cool watch, I'll ask them about it because I love to hear their story. On the other hand, I rarely have anyone in the wild ask me about my watches, and truthfully I like it that way. Let's see some more cool watches.
55 Fathoms hommage, it started life a Seiko and was modified. I do use it to tell time as I find pulling out my phone cumbersome and rude. Plus I am OCD to have the time incorrect.
Neat article. I don’t wear a watch often, as I would destroy it at work. But when I wear one, it better work, and it has to be set to the correct time and date. If it wasn’t, it would drive me insane. I can’t imagine someone asking me the time seeing that I’m wearing a watch, and then pulling out my cell phone to tell them the time. That would just seem odd.
I've been waiting for the fad of ostentatiously gigantic half-pound fashion accesory wristwatches to fade away. Unless a guy has wrists like the Hulk, it looks uncomfortable and tasteless, just my opinion.
