Hello from Colorado!

[spectre6000]

When I was in college, I decided I wanted a watch, which, let's be fair, isn't unusual save that my generation is the first where we never really did watches and just used our phones. I have a thing about batteries though; I hate them. Nothing disappoints like a dead battery, especially one that's not easy to find/replace. PAYING someone to replace a battery was utter insanity. I didn't want a battery powered watch, and I remembered my dad once showed me an old watch on a shelf in his closet that was mechanical, and worked just by moving around. I got online and tried to figure out what such a thing would be called, and whether or not they still existed. I ultimately found my way to eBay, and found a watch that went a step further requiring the wearer to physically wind it! "Crazy!" thought 22 year old me. It looked old, was some brand I'd never heard of nor knew how to pronounce, but had a really cool patina. Most importantly it was cheap at something like $35 (if my memory is correct).

It eventually made its way to me from the Ukraine (again, if memory serves, but definitely somewhere formerly Soviet), I had to make a watch band for it, and it sorta worked for a few weeks! I figured for $35, I couldn't really have high expectations, but my curiosity had been piqued, and I decided I would have it serviced. I got lucky and found a WOSTEP certified watchmaker in my town, and he was kind enough to let me bring the watch by. He even gave me a tour of the shop. I eventually picked up the newly functional watch, but the watchmaker knew quite a bit more than I expected. It turns out, the watch was a WWII German officer's watch, the D# had been scratched off the back, the crystal had popped out and been battlefield repaired with a knife by tapping little tangs around the crystal to hold it in place. Given where it came from, it was likely either picked up off a dead soldier or traded for ??? in a POW camp on the eastern front and kept by some former Soviet denizen as a souvenir (though not without scratching the Nazi stink off the case back). I contacted Cyma to ask if they had any information that could trace me back to the middle from the other direction, and all records had been destroyed a long time ago, but they could confirm that they made watches for the German government during WWII.

The Nazi origins were dark, but the connection to history on my wrist was compelling. It was a relic out of time that was a part of, and contributed to one of humanity's darkest hours, and I was using it to get to class on time! I was hooked.

I ultimately decided I had to stop wearing it save for very special occasions though. The watchmaker did his job well, and the work he did was very sympathetic to the history of the watch. He left the knife marks around the crystal in tact, but that meant it had zero water resistance of any sort. Even getting caught in the rain risked getting water in the case. So... I had to buy another watch!

I was hooked, but all these affordable eBay watches kept needing work to run well or for long... I went back to the watchmaker, and gave him a Komandierskie that caused him to establish a "no Russian watches" policy... I seem to recall he said he had had to buy two donor watches to get enough parts to make it work right. I told him I was interested in watchmaking, and he effectively talked me out of it saying he had "millions" in tools and equipment in his shop. That may have been true, but who knows (the shop was a room in his house). Either way, it caused me to put that interest on a mental shelf and pursue other things.

I've always had a thing for machines and how things worked. Since graduating from college, I got really into cars (started with air cooled VWs and ventured out into just about anything with an engine). I taught myself luthiery at 16, and have restored a number of old woodworking tools and machines over the years. I taught myself software engineering (the day job), and occasionally work with leather.

With my car hobby, I was able to have all manner of fun while making a little money in the process. My goal is to approximate the same with watches. Buy what I like, fix it up, have my fun, sell it for a profit, and get another fun watch to tinker with! First though, I need to sell off some tools from my car hobby. Time to convert!

[Nucejoe]

Welcome to WRT.

[oldhippy]

Thank you for your introduction and welcome to this friendly forum.

[Johnnie]

Hi and welcome to the happy factory

[FLwatchguy73]

Great story and welcome aboard! You'll find many of us have similarities in our stories.

[watchweasol]

Hello and welcome to the forum

[MarissaAnne]

Great story, just fascinating!

i joined this week and unlike all the cool people I already met, I have no cool stories nor experience. i just like to take things apart, and most of the time i can get them back together. Looking for a hobby that pulls me away from modern technology for a bit. I assume that you and I are relatively close in age and this is a skill that is atypical for the generation - at least in my universe of people - making it all the more special. I have an admiration for artisans, craftsmen, and the like. Mostly because as I stated in an earlier I have the finesse and elegance of a hippo. Anyway, welcome, good luck, and I am looking forward to more stories  

[spectre6000]

I read your intro. My sister lives in Sac. Thanks for the welcome! 

My universe also thinks I'm an oddball. I like machines of all sorts, and have this odd notion that adding computers is cheating. By day, I work with computers and electronics. My best friend has a horological connection in that he built a new experimental resonator for the atomic clock at NIST that's 10,000x more accurate than the existing one. He thinks my tube amplifiers and pre-war woodworking tools are weird. I did get him into a car to wrench on though!

I think you're onto something with the attraction to artisans and craftsman... A moment of personal revelation here (thanks for the inspiration!): the reason I have no real love for silicon probably has a lot to do the lack of artisanal craftsmanship. The engineers are mostly divorced from the final product. The devices are made by machines, and half-assedly slapped together by unskilled labor defined solely by price point... Certainly there are exceptions (and it's those exceptions that have me writing code today), but there's just no "soul" in a television set... There's a clear tie to the automotive world here too in terms of differentiating desirable classics from modern appliances, but I don't think this is the right crowd.

[VWatchie]

On 4/14/2020 at 4:40 AM, spectre6000 said:

I went back to the watchmaker, and gave him a Komandierskie that caused him to establish a "no Russian watches" policy... I seem to recall he said he had had to buy two donor watches to get enough parts to make it work right.

The name of the watch is KOMANDIRSKIE and is in my experience the most affordable watch on the planet. Originally designed for military use it is also very reliable and rugged. I have bought and repaired several of these watches and they have served me extremely well and have always been a very special joy to wear, for example my Komandirskie Paratrooper, and don't miss out on the video "The Vostok Amphibia: Failure or Fabulous?" The Amphibia is the bigger brother of the Komandirskie and use the same movements except they have been fitted with automatic winding. As for spare parts you can often pick up "a bag of" Vostok calibre 2414 (or 2409s all parts interchangeable) Komandirskie movements on eBay for next to nothing and hand it to your watchmaker (For example).

I don't see how a "no Russian watches" policy could be justified. Can you ask your watchmaker? I'd be really curious to know.

 

[Watchtime]

Welcome to the wicked world of WRT

[spectre6000]

6 hours ago, VWatchie said:

I don't see how a "no Russian watches" policy could be justified. Can you ask your watchmaker? I'd be really curious to know.

That was back in... 2007 maybe? and more than 1000 miles away. If I'm honest, he was probably being a bit of a snob and wanted me to go away with my cheap crap and enthusiasm. As I recall, his justification was that it took him buying two other watches to find enough parts to make a single good one. I don't recall what was wrong with it aside from having been recased in a case that's obviously too big for it, but I imagine he didn't like his net on the job. These days, it's much harder to talk me out of my pursuits. I absolutely appreciate his showing me around the shop and educating me as he did, but once the tone turned I'd have probably written him off entirely had it happened today.

 

6 hours ago, VWatchie said:

The name of the watch is KOMANDIRSKIE

Yeah. I should probably have spell checked it. I only know a handful of Russian words, and could only guess at the spellings of any of them. I bought it because I thought it was cool. Apparently I have an attraction toward military things. I don't like the military-fighting-guns-machismo of them, but the raw business like utilitarianism and simplicity appeals to the engineer in me. I have several military watches, there's a decommissioned military truck in my barn, my bandsaw was likely originally built for the WWII effort (it was sold a month after V-Day, and that's far too soon to have been much anything else), I could probably come up with a dozen other things if I looked around the house/shop/barn.

[VWatchie]

16 hours ago, spectre6000 said:

he was probably being a bit of a snob

Indeed, and I'm afraid that's far too often the case.

 

16 hours ago, spectre6000 said:

and wanted me to go away with my cheap crap and enthusiasm

Like children, new interests and enthusiasm should be treated with respect. I don't care if watch carries the name Patek or Poljot. I treat them with the same care.

 

16 hours ago, spectre6000 said:

I bought it because I thought it was cool

It is cool! 

Anyway, thanks for your entertaining story and giving me a chance to promote Russian watches. Again!