Watch geeks?

[Deleted User 89]

i remember when the calculator watches first came out

[defixione]

i remember when the calculator watches first came out

I remember when calculators first came out . . .

[Deleted User 89]

i remember when the calculator watches first came out

I remember when calculators first came out . . .

lmao

[ousdahl]

Remember when math teachers used to say “you gotta learn this cuz it’s not like you’re gonna have a calculator in your pocket every day for the rest of your life!”

Oh yeah?

- sent from my iPhone

[japhy]

I am not big on wearing watches. Wearing watch or a ring on a construction site just always seemed like a bad idea. This morning I had to open up a box of old family stuff to take inventory of contents, looking for wills and other documents. Inside was a bag with a watch in it, weird timing for this thread to show up a few days before. I put it on, it was my grandfather's. Annie saw it when it on me this morning and said, "you look like some sort of greasy Guido with that on". She was shocked to see shiny and gold on my arm. It looks a lot like this but with more gold on the case and a gold and silver band. The band fit perfect. Best guess is it dates to the 1940's. Second best guess is my sisters will start a fight over it after they see it.



My mom has a large carved English grandfather clock, maybe 9 foot tall. Also passed down from grandfather. None of my siblings or I wanted it, too much clock and takes work to maintain. One of my nephews said he wanted it, but he doesn't have a house or anyplace to keep it (lives in small apartment in NYC) so it sat at mom's apartment for a couple of decades. She moved recently and had to have it moved and serviced it. The guy who serviced it said it was one of only a few like it he had ever seen, never outside of a museum. I think it is mostly rosewood, gold plated hands and handpainted face that has insets that turn showing the sun and the moon. It has spires on top on the corners and the counterweights are glass jars full of mercury. He said the clock dates to early 1800's maybe late 1700's. The unique thing is there are ties inside that connect the weights and pullies and they are all the original cat gut. He says this is one of the things you never see outside of museum clocks. He said the clock market was down now, but a few years ago he saw one similar that sold at auction for about $100K. She decided she isn't going to give it to the nephew any more. She is going to keep it in her apartment until she moves to a nursing home.

[Deleted User 89]

we’ve got a grandfather clock...nothing like that, but we enjoy it

ironically, we’ve turned off all the chimes. we’ve also never bothered to properly set it. it’s got the option for lunar cycles (i think) and day/month, but we’re doing pretty good if we just remember to wind up the counter weights and keep it going

[japhy]

we’ve got a grandfather clock...nothing like that, but we enjoy it

ironically, we’ve turned off all the chimes. we’ve also never bothered to properly set it. it’s got the option for lunar cycles (i think) and day/month, but we’re doing pretty good if we just remember to wind up the counter weights and keep it going

Every room in their house in Chicago had multiple clocks in it. Most were from my grandfather's family. When the chimes went off the house sounded like the intro to Pink Floyd's "Time". My mom had the chimes turned off on the big one. The sound makes her crazy due to her Alzheimer's. I sent a photo of the Rolex to my sisters about an hour ago and there is already a discussion brewing as to how it "should stay in the family". It's amazing how when things are familiar or hidden away no one values them but once they are in the queue to be passed or sold, suddenly they take on personal significance. I am pretty sure none of us have a memory of my grandfather that included the watch. Maybe it should be a consolation prize to my nephew who no longer gets the big clock?

There comes a time when you collect things that you have to start considering what happens to the "collection" you have accumulated when you pass. Do you have heirs that value it? If it all stays with you until your last days will anyone even be able to tell what and where it is after you are gone? I have been going through a lot of other peoples' last piles of stuff recently, so it makes me think as I toss stuff someone kept for 70 years and now it is just part of a landfill. Why did they keep it, what does it mean? The drawer we found in the Empire with hundreds of fingernail clippers comes to mind right off the bat.

[Deleted User 89]

we’ve got a grandfather clock...nothing like that, but we enjoy it

ironically, we’ve turned off all the chimes. we’ve also never bothered to properly set it. it’s got the option for lunar cycles (i think) and day/month, but we’re doing pretty good if we just remember to wind up the counter weights and keep it going

Every room in their house in Chicago had multiple clocks in it. Most were from my grandfather's family. When the chimes went off the house sounded like the intro to Pink Floyd's "Time". My mom had the chimes turned off on the big one. The sound makes her crazy due to her Alzheimer's. I sent a photo of the Rolex to my sisters about an hour ago and there is already a discussion brewing as to how it "should stay in the family". It's amazing how when things are familiar or hidden away no one values them but once they are in the queue to be passed or sold, suddenly they take on personal significance. I am pretty sure none of us have a memory of my grandfather that included the watch. Maybe it should be a consolation prize to my nephew who no longer gets the big clock?

There comes a time when you collect things that you have to start considering what happens to the "collection" you have accumulated when you pass. Do you have heirs that value it? If it all stays with you until your last days will anyone even be able to tell what and where it is after you are gone? I have been going through a lot of other peoples' last piles of stuff recently, so it makes me think as I toss stuff someone kept for 70 years and now it is just part of a landfill. Why did they keep it, what does it mean? The drawer we found in the Empire with hundreds of fingernail clippers comes to mind right off the bat.

funny, i’ve been thinking about both topics of late

on both sides of my family there is bickering among siblings about inheritance stuff. my brothers and i have taken a pact of sorts to never go down that road. fortunately, at least my pops has put together an itemized list of to whom he wants certain things to go. the list is maybe 25 items long, so there there will be a whole lot left up in the air when the time comes

with no kids of my own, whatever i’ve got left will likely go to the niece and nephew, but i’d imagine a fair chunk will get donated to various organizations. that of course presumes that we don’t do something crazy...like adopt

[Sparko]

My eclectic saxophone collection will probably be donated to KU or a junior college. No interest from the kids. Such a weird electronic world now.

I have a wind-up 1961 Hamilton and a 62 automatic. Strangely enough the 61 works. The 62 just stopped.

[japhy]

The part about keeping "things in the family" is kind of weird/troublesome at times. The watch is a simpler matter, my grandfather bought it and wore it. It was his and has been in the family since it was made. The big clock is something different. His parents had money, they owned a hospital on the south side of Chicago before the turn of the century when hospitals were mostly private. After WWI they would travel to Europe and as my mom told the story, they would come back with crates of things bought over there with stuff inside. The clock was part of that booty brought back. So it was in someone else's family for years and years quite likely. It was always an expensive item. But after the war Europe was broke and the US economy was booming so it was likely a fire sale they were shopping. So when their kids fought over things that should be "kept in the family", it was stuff that really had been in another less fortunate family prior to that. I remember hearing that my grandfather was a bit perturbed about the process of dissolving the estate. He got the clock and some weird tall marble lamps. But being a detective on the Chicago police force his home was not as expansive as his brothers who were all lawyers, so he kept smaller stuff. And a lot of stuff was sold, the parents house was huge. I remember being in Marshall Fields as a kid with my mom and we walked through the antique section on the top floor of the massive store. My mom stopped at a giant hand carved desk, I think it was walnut. She told me "that was Bernard's dad's desk", she remembered it from when she saw it as a kid in his office in the house. She was sure there couldn't be any two like it in Chicago. It was a piece of art. I checked the price tag and it was listed at $16,000 and this was almost 50 years ago. At some point without a reason for attachment everything is just an object with a market value.

[KU76erfan]

That's certainly a lovely Rolex OP!