Inherited over 2000 pocket watched

[Jaime]

Hi everyone. I’m new here. I recently inherited some pocket watches. A lot of them are not running so I got interested in trying to fix some of them.  It’s been pretty frustrating for sure. I thought maybe I could get some more knowledge here or maybe ask some questions. So far I have dismantled, cleaned and reassembled a watch and that took forever. I know I can never be really good without proper training but it’s just really fun for me to do it.  

[Michael1962]

Wow! All sorts of brands and case styles?

And welcome. 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Michael1962

[Waggy]

Wow that's a lifetime of work, by the time you finish the last one, the first will be ready for a service.

[oldhippy]

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

We all look forward to your contributions and continued involvement. 

You need to go through them all with extreme care take down the makers names on the really old ones the name will be on the back plate of the watch. Sort out silver cases from the gold case ones. If you don't have very much knowledge of pocket watches its a job to advise you on where to start. How about you start with those in trays post good photos of those first and we can help you. 

[RichardHarris123]

Hello and welcome. 

[Nucejoe]

Welcome to the WRT forum.

[clockboy]

Wow, servicing that lot will take you years. Welcome to the forum enjoy.

[Neverenoughwatches]

13 hours ago, Jaime said:

Hi everyone. I’m new here. I recently inherited some pocket watches. A lot of them are not running so I got interested in trying to fix some of them.  It’s been pretty frustrating for sure. I thought maybe I could get some more knowledge here or maybe ask some questions. So far I have dismantled, cleaned and reassembled a watch and that took forever. I know I can never be really good without proper training but it’s just really fun for me to do it.  

Welcome Jaime, I'm not a pocket watch guy but when you said some ?  WOW.  you just have to give us the story behind this please.

[rehajm]

That’s an amazing…collection. Show us more pictures.

[JohnR725]

On 11/14/2023 at 11:36 AM, Jaime said:

inherited

Inheritance such an interesting word you recently acquired a heckuva lot of pocket watches. Did the pocket watches come from a business that went out of business or an individual it collected watches what to know about the person who collected them if that is the case?

Are these European pocket watches American pocket watches?

For the most part it looks like at least their intact pocket watches. Often times we acquire stuff from former watchmakers for instance they will be in pieces and you never know what pieces are missing but yours at least look like their intact that's the good news.

On 11/14/2023 at 11:36 AM, Jaime said:

so I got interested in trying to fix some of them.  It’s been pretty frustrating for sure. I thought maybe I could get some more knowledge here or maybe ask some questions. So far I have dismantled, cleaned and reassembled a watch and that took forever. I know I can never be really good without proper training but it’s just really fun for me to do it.  

Watch repair tends to frustrating if you make assumptions of how easy watch repair is and you don't know the direction you're going in. Plus if you look at the YouTube video is that's very bad without understanding because they tend to make watch repair looked really easy.

Then yes disassembling reassembling a watch without any prior knowledge is going to be challenging. Then you don't need proper training kind of you need to practice. Watch repair as I often will say is similar to learning to become a doctor. You need some education like from this group to get you started and then you need the practice. Just like everyone on this group is currently practicing all practicing to be better. So obviously when you begin with no prior knowledge and lack of practice well you should practice on something that you don't care about as the patient will probably die. Which is why they typically don't let doctors practice on live patients until they can handle them.

You really have two separate problems here you would like to learn watch repair and you of a nightmare of a collection because at least from what you've said all we know is there pocket watches. So and choice a pocket watch the start learning on is a big factor there are some watches that nobody in their right mind should ever start on.

Maybe we can start by categorizing like who made your watches what country did they come from how do they all come together to be in this big collection?

 

[Jaime]

3 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

Inheritance such an interesting word you recently acquired a heckuva lot of pocket watches. Did the pocket watches come from a business that went out of business or an individual it collected watches what to know about the person who collected them if that is the case?

Are these European pocket watches American pocket watches?

For the most part it looks like at least their intact pocket watches. Often times we acquire stuff from former watchmakers for instance they will be in pieces and you never know what pieces are missing but yours at least look like their intact that's the good news.

Watch repair tends to frustrating if you make assumptions of how easy watch repair is and you don't know the direction you're going in. Plus if you look at the YouTube video is that's very bad without understanding because they tend to make watch repair looked really easy.

Then yes disassembling reassembling a watch without any prior knowledge is going to be challenging. Then you don't need proper training kind of you need to practice. Watch repair as I often will say is similar to learning to become a doctor. You need some education like from this group to get you started and then you need the practice. Just like everyone on this group is currently practicing all practicing to be better. So obviously when you begin with no prior knowledge and lack of practice well you should practice on something that you don't care about as the patient will probably die. Which is why they typically don't let doctors practice on live patients until they can handle them.

You really have two separate problems here you would like to learn watch repair and you of a nightmare of a collection because at least from what you've said all we know is there pocket watches. So and choice a pocket watch the start learning on is a big factor there are some watches that nobody in their right mind should ever start on.

Maybe we can start by categorizing like who made your watches what country did they come from how do they all come together to be in this big collection?

 

Thank you for the nice reply. I guess I shouldn’t have used the word “inherit”. I just meant it in the way of “given to me to deal with”. My husband had a friend whose dad was a huge watch collector. The friend inherited his dads huge collection. After that he got into watches himself. So for the last 25 years he bought and sold them and worked on them a little. My husband would buy watches from him over the years (he’s into California private label watches). When his friend passed away the wife sold them to my husband. My husband took all the gold ones and I “inherited” the rest to deal with because he doesn’t have time. I was just going to separate them by maker, running or not, case material etc but I started getting interested in them. It started because a lot of them look perfect like they should run but don’t. Where a lot of the them look really beat up like they shouldn’t be running but are. So I took an online course and started to study. I’m sort of obsessed now. I’ve spent so much time and spent a lot on supplies. My husband is mad because he just wanted me to see what was there etc not get into watch repair! And I have a couple hundred movements from the watches he scrapped for the gold.  I’ve been working on this for a while now. It is like 80 percent American and 20 percent Swiss and other countries. I’m not even going to try to tackle learning about those lol. 

 

15 hours ago, oldhippy said:

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

We all look forward to your contributions and continued involvement. 

You need to go through them all with extreme care take down the makers names on the really old ones the name will be on the back plate of the watch. Sort out silver cases from the gold case ones. If you don't have very much knowledge of pocket watches it’s a job to advise you on where to start. How about you start with those in trays post good photos of those first and we can help you. 

Thank you for the reply. That photo was when I first got them. I’ve been working on organizing them for a couple months. I’ve learned some basic stuff. I took an online course and read some books. But now I want to fix the broken ones lol!!

[Michael1962]

Definitely needs to be catalogued and sorted.

 I would also like to know how you  inherited all of them. 

Edited November 18, 2023 by oldhippy
changed a word

[LittleWatchShop]

You have a lifetime of fun and frustration there. If you own any guns, make sure they are locked up and someone else has the key.

Where are you located?

[Slippers]

Crikey, that’s quite a haul and a very nice way to get into a hobby! 

[Michael1962]

On 11/16/2023 at 9:49 AM, Michael1962 said:

Definitely needs to be catalogued and sorted.

 I would also like to know how you invested all of them. 

Bugger. That should have been inherited. Not invested.

'Note to Self': Always check wording before hitting reply.

[oldhippy]

Michael1962. I have changed it for you. 

[gpraceman]

On 11/15/2023 at 3:28 PM, Jaime said:

Thank you for the nice reply. I guess I shouldn’t have used the word “inherit”. I just meant it in the way of “given to me to deal with”. My husband had a friend whose dad was a huge watch collector. The friend inherited his dads huge collection. After that he got into watches himself. So for the last 25 years he bought and sold them and worked on them a little. My husband would buy watches from him over the years (he’s into California private label watches). When his friend passed away the wife sold them to my husband. My husband took all the gold ones and I “inherited” the rest to deal with because he doesn’t have time. I was just going to separate them by maker, running or not, case material etc but I started getting interested in them. It started because a lot of them look perfect like they should run but don’t. Where a lot of the them look really beat up like they shouldn’t be running but are. So I took an online course and started to study. I’m sort of obsessed now. I’ve spent so much time and spent a lot on supplies. My husband is mad because he just wanted me to see what was there etc not get into watch repair! And I have a couple hundred movements from the watches he scrapped for the gold.  I’ve been working on this for a while now. It is like 80 percent American and 20 percent Swiss and other countries. I’m not even going to try to tackle learning about those lol. 

 

Thank you for the reply. That photo was when I first got them. I’ve been working on organizing them for a couple months. I’ve learned some basic stuff. I took an online course and read some books. But now I want to fix the broken ones lol!!

Sad that cases were scrapped for their gold.  Might have been some really valuable collectable watches in the mix.

Good to hear that you are working on learning watch repair.  Rather daunting task to learn and get together a good set of tools.  I'd start on the working ones.  It builds confidence to service a working watch and make it run better than it was when you started on it.   Non-working watches can be quite a Pandora's box.  I found that out on a 1937 Elgin Grade 315 that belongs to my Father-in-law.  Dried oils that cemented parts in place, jewel issues, and a broken balance staff.

I just got myself a trifocal microscope and that is a game changer for me.  I was using a digital microscope and that was just okay.  The optical microscope is so much better.  What I thought was clean, wasn't.  Some parts I thought were fine, aren't.  How did I miss a chipped pallet fork jewel?  If you don't have an optical microscope, I'd get one sooner rather than later.

[JohnR725]

33 minutes ago, gpraceman said:

Sad that cases were scrapped for their gold.  Might have been some really valuable collectable watches in the mix.

Usually because gold is more valuable the watch in the case should be more valuable. So the sad aspect is the eeriness to scrap the gold and not the cell the complete item which often times will have more money than the gold alone. Then because this was such a large collection there might of an auction houses willing to just auction the whole thing off for more money. But the lure of fast cash and scrapping gold is why we have so many movements out there. So hopefully the movements were just tossed like garbage with the perception that they have no value because they should have some value.

 

[oldhippy]

Scraping gold or silver cases can depend on the price that the market is at at that time. I can remember back in the 70's silver hit an all time high, people where bringing in silver tea sets, candelabras, silver cigarette cases and God knows what and selling them for scrap, the scrap price was higher then what the items were worth. We had to go to the bank because we ran out of cash. 

[Jaime]

8 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

Usually because gold is more valuable the watch in the case should be more valuable. So the sad aspect is the eeriness to scrap the gold and not the cell the complete item which often times will have more money than the gold alone. Then because this was such a large collection there might of an auction houses willing to just auction the whole thing off for more money. But the lure of fast cash and scrapping gold is why we have so many movements out there. So hopefully the movements were just tossed like garbage with the perception that they have no value because they should have some value.

 

We put a couple gold watches on EBay and kept getting offers way below even the gold value. Since gold is high now I guess people don’t understand how much the gold is worth. The 18 size cases averaged about $700-$1000 in gold. We were offered $500-$800 over and over and the person acts like that’s a good offer.  We scrapped the gold and a lot of them had high end movements which I’ve already sold a few of those for a few hundred each. I even asked a few supposed “watch dealers” and they tried to say the gold weight was less. It is sad to dismantle the watch but they are slow to sell and a lot of hassle. 

9 hours ago, gpraceman said:

Sad that cases were scrapped for their gold.  Might have been some really valuable collectable watches in the mix.

Good to hear that you are working on learning watch repair.  Rather daunting task to learn and get together a good set of tools.  I'd start on the working ones.  It builds confidence to service a working watch and make it run better than it was when you started on it.   Non-working watches can be quite a Pandora's box.  I found that out on a 1937 Elgin Grade 315 that belongs to my Father-in-law.  Dried oils that cemented parts in place, jewel issues, and a broken balance staff.

I just got myself a trifocal microscope and that is a game changer for me.  I was using a digital microscope and that was just okay.  The optical microscope is so much better.  What I thought was clean, wasn't.  Some parts I thought were fine, aren't.  How did I miss a chipped pallet fork jewel?  If you don't have an optical microscope, I'd get one sooner rather than later.

Thank you for the advice. I’m just using a magnifying glass. I’ve never seen smaller screws in my life!!

[gpraceman]

1 hour ago, Jaime said:

Thank you for the advice. I’m just using a magnifying glass. I’ve never seen smaller screws in my life!!

I've tried eye loupes, a magnifying visor and a digital microscope.  I wish I would have gotten the microscope much sooner.  Yes, and even pocket watches can have tiny tiny screws.

[Waggy]

13 minutes ago, gpraceman said:

I wish I would have gotten the microscope much sooner.

I agree 100%, I now do most of my work under the microscope, I only use a visor if I have to work at a strange angle like when installing hands when it is sometimes good to look from the side to confirm you are aligned etc. I got a version that also houses a camera, which I use much more than I thought, I snap pictures which save to a SD card in the camera as I go along and can then refer to them when I have a senior moment and forget where stuff went. I got my setup as a kit from Ali Express which included the scope, camera and boom arm. I was a little scared over quality, but to date I am very happy with this purchase. I know it's quite a big financial outlay, especially when you are just starting out, but if I could go back in time I would tell myself to get one sooner rather than later.

I now do a lot of women's watches, without the scope this would have been a difficult task, but now I just twist the zoom dial a bit more and its like working on a pocket watch.

[HectorLooi]

Ladies' watches are a real conundrum. We all know they are more difficult to work on because of their size, but their lower market value makes it difficult to charge more for the job. It's easier to ask for $1000 to service a Rolex gent's watch than a ladies' watch.

It's the same problem when I was working as a dentist. Kids are so much more difficult to manage and work on. Their mouths are smaller, making access more difficult. The sit lower in the dental chair, making us lean over more and getting a backache. Then at the end of the day, the parents expect to pay less because every other business gives a children's discount.

Come on, even the vet charges more for scaling a cat than what parents expect to pay for dental work on their child.