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Pocket Watch Recovery
22 June 2023 08:49 amTwo, now almost three months ago, I was preparing for my first Cowboy Action Shooting event in years (delayed because Covid, of course)(post). I got out my pocket watch and went to wind it up because it too had been sitting for all that time. The stem went about half a turn and stopped. There was no motion. Broken sprint? Dirt? I had no way of knowing but it seems odd to have been sitting unused but in an essentially broken state all this time.
Watchmakers are hard to find anymore. Hell, when I was trying to find genuine watch repair for my great-grandmother’s pocket watch back in 2010 (post) it took quite a lot of searching to find a watchmaker at all. This time, I had a recommendation for William Penn Jewelers in Squirrel Hill.
They wanted $90 just to look at it.
I balked. First, that seems like a lot of money just to open it up and see what’s going on. It also seems quite a lot for a pocket watch that originally cost $75. The clerk (the watchmaker himself was not on site) looked through a catalog for replacement and found the same watch for $130, which was what I found looking up the watch at Historical Emporium where I originally got it (link). Not surprising that the cost had gone up but half again as much in 10 years is quite a bit ahead of inflation.
I would have to think about it. I recognize that the industry, any industry anymore, is all about replacement rather than repair but I was not inclined to spend as much repairing as replacing, especially on something that didn’t really have any historic or sentimental value. In the meantime, I pulled my old Soviet-era Red Banner steel pocket watch out of the box.
Scheduling has prevented me from attending any CAS events over the past two months (I’ll be going back for the July shoot, though) but I was preparing for the Wild West event at Old Bedford Village this weekend (also something I haven’t attended for three years) and picked up my pocket watch on the off chance that it had magically repaired itself.
And it had.
It wound normally and has been keeping good time since. I am told that modern watched cannot be overwound but it seems very much like that’s what had happened. It was stuck fully wound and just sitting there, was able to unstick itself, and unwound completely. Or something. I know the basic concepts of how clocks work but am in no way qualified to open one up and understand what I am looking at.
So, hurrah! My watch is working without me having to pay to repair or replace it.
Watchmakers are hard to find anymore. Hell, when I was trying to find genuine watch repair for my great-grandmother’s pocket watch back in 2010 (post) it took quite a lot of searching to find a watchmaker at all. This time, I had a recommendation for William Penn Jewelers in Squirrel Hill.
They wanted $90 just to look at it.
I balked. First, that seems like a lot of money just to open it up and see what’s going on. It also seems quite a lot for a pocket watch that originally cost $75. The clerk (the watchmaker himself was not on site) looked through a catalog for replacement and found the same watch for $130, which was what I found looking up the watch at Historical Emporium where I originally got it (link). Not surprising that the cost had gone up but half again as much in 10 years is quite a bit ahead of inflation.
I would have to think about it. I recognize that the industry, any industry anymore, is all about replacement rather than repair but I was not inclined to spend as much repairing as replacing, especially on something that didn’t really have any historic or sentimental value. In the meantime, I pulled my old Soviet-era Red Banner steel pocket watch out of the box.
Scheduling has prevented me from attending any CAS events over the past two months (I’ll be going back for the July shoot, though) but I was preparing for the Wild West event at Old Bedford Village this weekend (also something I haven’t attended for three years) and picked up my pocket watch on the off chance that it had magically repaired itself.
And it had.
It wound normally and has been keeping good time since. I am told that modern watched cannot be overwound but it seems very much like that’s what had happened. It was stuck fully wound and just sitting there, was able to unstick itself, and unwound completely. Or something. I know the basic concepts of how clocks work but am in no way qualified to open one up and understand what I am looking at.
So, hurrah! My watch is working without me having to pay to repair or replace it.
