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First off, I wanted to say thank you to a lot of you... I came here a few months back to learn more about how a watch works.  I've always been interested in mechanical things, and have just loved watches.  I find it absolutely amazing that something so small, can be jam packed with such precision items to do what it does. 

I know I have asked a ton of questions from many of you, and you all have been absolutely patient with me.  I'd love to give a shout out to all of you, but I know I would forget someone and I don't want to do that, so thank you all!

One of the things I have always liked are books.  In order to learn something, it helps to be able to read about it from those who are far more knowledgeable than I am.  Granted, just reading something won't make you an expert at doing it, and that is where practice comes in.  But you still need to have a good understanding of what goes into it.

I know I have reached out to a number of you about books or images that you may have shared with all of us.  I think I have a good little library now that I can use to reference.  I think I asked @JohnR725about if one book is better than the other and his answer was something along the lines of not one book is perfect, but they all add something.  Anyhow, I'd like to share with those who may be new to this hobby some of the books I have picked up and some of my thoughts on them.  If possible, I will provide a link to Archive.org so you can see the book.  Not all of them are there though, but all of them I physically own, which is how I generally use them. 

The first book I got was The Watch Repairer's Manual by H.B. Fried.  I found an older version of this book (2nd edition) on a used book site for hardly anything.  Granted, it was written some time ago, but I have found it to be a good combination of somewhat modern and old.  It has some great information on the escapement, the pallet jewels, etc that I have been referencing.

The next book I got was Practical Watch Repairing by Donald de Carle.  Mine was from 1946, so I'm not exactly sure the edition that is, but I really like this.  Mr de Carle doesn't assume I know much and explains things very well.  This one I find a bit more readable than Fried's, in that I feel like I could easily read it from the start of the book and not just use it as a reference book.  I'm not sure how practical doing that would be, but I'm going to give it a try.  I find that it supplements Fried's book well.  Some things are very similar, but the two books cover more grounds together than they do individually (as can be said for all the books in my library I think).

The next book I just got today, and that is The Swiss Watch Repairer's Manual by H. Jendritzki.  I wasn't able to find find this one online for reference first, but I did find a good price for one from 1953.  The link I have just takes you to OpenLibrary so you can get all the technical detail on the book.  I just happened to luck out and find this one for a steal ($40 + shipping), so you may have to search for this one.  I think EBay had this for some insane prices, but if you look at the sold items for it, you will see that it does come up from time to time at a reasonable price.  Biblio and AbeBooks are also great resources to find one, the former is what I used.  Being that I just got this book today, I have not had much of a chance to look at it yet.  It seems very good, lots of pictures and details, but time will tell.    It does have a nice table of contents, and also some excellent charts in the back but no index (both previous books had an index)

The last book I have currently in my library I have some mixed feelings on.  I think it is a great reference book, but it is expensive.  It is titled The Theory of Horology and is part of the Watchmakers of Switzerland training and educational program (WOSTEP).  In short, it IS a textbook.  It is very technical, and it may be way overkill for a hobbyist.  It was expensive, I found mine used, but I paid $90 + shipping for it from Biblio.  I saw it for a lot more than what I paid though.  The one item that I don't like about the book is that the table of contents are near the back, and there is not an index.  I get that it is a textbook more suited for a technical schooling, but I find it a disservice to those who use it to not have an index.  I do feel this has some excellent diagrams, and some very technical documentation, but much of that may just go unused for the hobbyist like myself.  At my age and state in my career, I don't see myself going away to watchmaking school, so I just look at this as an investment and someday, it will pay for itself. 

Well, that's it for now.  Does someone who is new to the hobby need all of these books, absolutely not.  I have a library in my home and always encouraged my kids to read whatever they can get their hands on, so for me, this is a good first step for me.  Will I invest in more books on the subject, I'm sure I will and if you have any books that you think I should check out, please let me know.

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12 hours ago, Klassiker said:

I have other books by Jendritzki. He writes very well and I have found useful information in his books which other writers don't touch upon.

9 hours ago, kd8tzc said:

I haven't seen any others that are in English

as far as I know all of his books are published in English. The problem is there a published a long time ago and they were Sincerely published in a very huge quantity so finding them can be challenging. But they really do exist. There also my understanding being republished by the people at the link below

https://www.booksimonin.ch/simonin-publishing.php#corps

for instance here's one in English this is a very good book by the way. Then the second link below a video he does a review of the book and points out who publishes it. So I would just send an email to the link above and ask about English versions of the book any of the books.

https://www.booksimonin.ch/en/3706-watch-adjustment.php#corps

https://youtu.be/op68gwVvsCo

 

 

 

13 hours ago, kd8tzc said:

The last book I have currently in my library I have some mixed feelings on.  I think it is a great reference book, but it is expensive.  It is titled The Theory of Horology and is part of the Watchmakers of Switzerland training and educational program (WOSTEP).  In short, it IS a textbook.  It is very technical, and it may be way overkill for a hobbyist.  It was expensive,

it's really weird I have this feeling I've done this before? I must not of submitted by reply this morning. So yes were in agreement is an expensive book. I would be really curious if they actually do use it for training manual or not? To me it always looks like the watchmakers coffee table book you leave out to impress your friends. Except it does have a lot of information in their is just? So yes I have it I paid less than $100 for a used I don't think I'd ever pay the new price for it I don't know it's one of those mixed feeling books there is a lot of good stuff in there it's just a very peculiar book. or I think is a lot of other books and be much better for some way to acquire.

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3 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

as far as I know all of his books are published in English. The problem is there a published a long time ago and they were Sincerely published in a very huge quantity so finding them can be challenging. But they really do exist. There also my understanding being republished by the people at the link below

https://www.booksimonin.ch/simonin-publishing.php#corps

for instance here's one in English this is a very good book by the way. Then the second link below a video he does a review of the book and points out who publishes it. So I would just send an email to the link above and ask about English versions of the book any of the books.

https://www.booksimonin.ch/en/3706-watch-adjustment.php#corps

https://youtu.be/op68gwVvsCo

I found that book site a little strange... no easy way to buy a book.  You put your selection together and then supposedly someone will contact you with what the cost will be with shipping, except, nobody did.  I was looking to buy a different book on their site.  Possibly I didn't do something correct?  That adjustment book sounds interesting.  I wish it was available on the Archive.org site so I could get a preview of it.

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4 minutes ago, kd8tzc said:

I found that book site a little strange... no easy way to buy a book

interesting? I'll have to remember someone else in the group ordered a book is only complaint was that they said it basically fastest delivery possible and the shipping was very expensive.

Then I usually fine for buying books like this just keep an active search on eBay they seem to show up sooner or later and usually at the better price than other places.

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Any idea what the shipping cost might have been?

I like to use Biblio as you can create a "Want list" which basically searches for the book for you.  It will send you an email (much like ebay) but I find it to be less expensive on many cases.  I'm not sure if any of the other old book sites do the same.

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Just checked. All but one of my Jendritzki books are in German.

A version of The Swiss Watch Repairer's Manual is available in English (and German, French, Spanish, Polish) here:

https://www.uhrenwerkzeuge24.de/literatur.php

It's a modern softback issue and for some reason has been retitled as Watch Repair for Beginners 2014.

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I did order THE THEORY OF HOROLOGY directly from:

https://www.booksimonin.ch/fr/9493-english-the-theory-of-horology.php#corps

and it ended up costing me $197 USD where the book itself was only $150 USD (136 CHF) so it cost me another 47 bucks to get it here.

It was a PITA.

They wouldn't directly take a CC # as I recall I had to do a money transfer using PayPal.

The people there that I dealt with were great!

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