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I thought I'd prove you wrong and give you an example of a 99 pence watch, and what that can buy you ( not quite true £3.00 postage and packing as well ) This is a West End Watch Co Sowar, this watch was listed for a week on a 99p start auction, listed as a non runner, I have not yet serviced the watch but on arrival the reason it didnt run was obvious the picture below shows the hour hand, a piece of the luminous paint from it had come loose and lodged itself under the small minute hand and stopped the watch, The watch is pre war water proof Borgel cased watch, in stainless steel with inner dust cover, Its all original and is fully stamped, The movement is a 15 jewel with shock protection, And on close inspection is very clean with little dirt any where, There is very slighty rust on the crown wheel, The watch is bone dry and crying out for a service which I will be doing shortly. My advice is dont get bogged down on what to buy or wether its a runner or not this would be a ideal watch to start on it's a simple 15 jewel movement even if you bought something like this and it did need more than a service, just practicing taking it a part and getting a feel for using screwdrivers and tweezers and getting used to where things go and how they fit would make the £3.99 a sound buy. A list of some of my last years purchases, Rado purple horse (runner) needed new crystal £17.90 Perona automatic (runner) £7.99 free postage Nivada Aquamatic (runner) £8.55 Kienzle combitime (non runner) £3.53 now working frame from date aperture had come off and was wedged under seconds hand glued back in place Luxor automatic (runner) £15.00 nice watch adjusted 6 posistions look out for these usually have very good adjusted movements in. Take inspiration and keep your eyes open it dosnt have to be an expensive hobby, Wayne

Hi all. Hope this is a friendly forum, keen to welcome new and inexperienced members like myself - it seems like it from the replies. We have a very small, but growing collection of vintage watches (2!), but I hope both are interesting... The first watch was in a box gifted from my wife's grandfather, and was identified at UK Antiques roadshow as a Rolex Silver Prince 1945. We have since identified it as an earlier 1931 from the hallmarks. It needs a bit of work (missing second hand, cracked crystal etc but does run. Giving tried it on - not allowed to wear it, as it is my wife's I decidedly see what I could find, and have (EBAY) picked up (what I think is) a 1934 Illinois Ensign for what I consider to be the bargain price of £8.50. It needs a new crystal and stem and a good clean but ticks. more questions to follow in correct forum section. Here they are anyway...

A friend of mine showed me this today asking if I knew anything about. Other than it being gorgeous I had know ideas but thought it might be fun to research. I'd never seen one quite like it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Great walkthrough,....thanks for sharing.

Thanks , I have got most of the old seal out now and will be ordering from Cousin's soon so any ideas on correct size of new seal would be amazing or is it a measure best I can and guesstimate!

Thank you, I enjoyed reading through this thread. My oils arrived yesterday, now I'm just waiting on my wire baskets so I can clean the movements and I will be all ready to start practising cleaning and servicing on my practice movements. I find posts like these very useful.

No correction needed, cases were mass produced by several different co's, that it's real common to find one branded watch in different case, often there were re-cased after original plum wore out! That is one BEAUTIFUL dial! Well used watch, can you get movement pic?

A great write up Alexander, we could do with more of this quality!

I should have added that this is a very clear guide with excellent pics.

That Zodiac is something else Im not a fan of gold watches but that's really nice Today's new arrival from Japan, a little xmass prezzie to my self In my favourite colour and a retro design but with a hacking 4R37 movement ( handwind too ). I want the Black & gold version also but they are harder to find

Found my services navigator a brother the right one is the new one. These are quite amazing little pin levers you just clean and oil them and off they go although I did have to adjust the hairspring collet to bring the beat error down on the new one it was way up.

epos originale 3420 A bit sorry but this slim boy will have to go. Too large for me even if just 40,5mm.

Today's watch was a Seiko 7T3-6A90 that I just serviced, received not working and with rust on the main crown stem. Took care of that, gave it a much needed clean, and took it for a spin on my wrist. Here it is, with my evening coffee and cake.

Wearing a 70's German Helbros cal R75 today. Was a non runner just needed a good clean service and crystal and now is another one for my collection.

Just in case this would be handy here is the PDF AS 1900, 1901.pdf Incidentally my Glycine Airman SST (Pumpkin) contains the AS1903 movement. Cheers, Vic

Here a last picture of the bridge side: Now to the dial side. Pretty straight forward.

I don't have a watch.

Thank you very much jdm. I did it going from a 240 grit drumel to get rid of the big scratches, down to red polish and over to 1200 grit by hand and finally 2000 grit by hand. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk