What happened to the Mechanical Watches?
 

Do you remember when you where very young and you went into a WatchMaker's Shop and listened to the big old Clocks and small arms Watches TicTocing their way.
A Universe of independent timekeeping. Everyone unique in sound and now we have these Digital wathches that are totally soundless.

Wild guess from me.

Our base Pulse is some 60 beats per minute when very calm or so and 120 beats is our pulse for Excitement?
So the watches going synk with these too states of mind had Attachment feelings about them.

I longed soo for an old mechanical Watch that I even entered such an old shop. wow no meachanical there, only Quarts mimicking the old ones and using a battery to wind it's way to future.

And then on holiday I looked into a container of dumped things and saw a womans watch there and me happy as a kid searching for the Gem at Beach in the form of rounded stones I lay my hands on it and it even was a working unit.

It even show time approximately on 30 seconds a day or so. Me frantically for some month trying to "ruck" it to be within some 10 or 5 seconds had to give it up. 3o seconds is managable for owning the last mechanical clock so I keep it as jewel around my neck. To show the world I am a rich man owning a True Gem.

trew

I don't really miss the mechanical watches.

When I was young a watch was a big investment. My first watch was a Rodania and these were cheap watches in their day. I had three of these in a row and one of them kept perfect time. They were very reliable unlike the Timex.

The digital watches are a good thing too.
 

I love Radiocontrolled Watches. They keep time within one second in thousands of years. *Big Smile* suit a control freak like me. I ahve three of them. But they are totally silent.

The cheapest digital I have costed me only 10SEK which is less the 2USD. ok it had cost 20SEK but none wanted to buy them so they had to sell them for 10 to get rid of them.
the Wall Clocks do sound ones a second but it is the wrong sound.

Ok I am only nostalgic I guess. I was very young when I visisted our enighbour with his numerous watches of different sizes.

trew

I don't think you are really right about this, there's still a substantial market for mechanical watches at the higher end of the price range.

Yeah, mechanical watches are still out there. The digital and quartz movement watches are more common because you can produce thousands of them at a time at very low cost in factories in China so everyone can afford a watch nowadays.

Mechanical watches were always expensive items, because the precision craftsmanship that goes into them is just plain worth a lot of money. Before there were quartz movement watches, most people just didn't have a watch and those that did usually held them in high value (which is why pocket watches were more popular than wristwatches even decades after wristwatches were invented... it's easier to protect your watch when it's not dangling on the end of your arm).

For an extremely brief period of time, there was an increase in the use of mechanical wristwatches after a few companies started pressing the gears out of sheet metal in large quantities. This time was brief both because quartz movement watches started to hit the market shortly afterward and because the manufacturing processes in these watches produced timepieces that weren't as accurate or durable as the old-world mechanical watches. They were cheap crap basically, and if you were going to buy cheap crap, you could get it cheaper in electrical form. If you wanted a good mechanical watch, it always cost a lot of money.

Mechanical watches have always been a luxury item for most people. Times haven't really changed in that respect.

Ironically, when quartz technology was first introduced in the late 1920's, quartz clocks (watches came later) were considered luxuries as well as being the most accurate timepieces up to that time The wheel goes round and round ;)

Thats a good article!!

I mi$$ the good days........ Things alot better than they are now.....

I love the movie BACK TO THE FUTURE .. Doc has all kinds of clocks like this in his house and its QUITE NOISY when it hits the top of the hour :D

I have to jump in on this 'old thread revival' bandwagon. My grandmother's brother had a 'clock repair' shop in his basement. Just about every other room of the house had at least two or three mechanical clocks in it. He loved timepieces and fixing them. I loved visiting him and his wife, that house was a wonderful place, esp. on the hour and half hour..

- Bruce

Thank you Bruce for sharing that :)

:)

You know, there was an electric (AC) mechanical, not digital, clock in the kitchen. I believe it was the only plug-in clock in the house. Referring back to one of the years old posts in this thread, I recall reading years ago something somewhere stating that the frequency of AC electrical current (60 Hz) being beneficial to a clocks' accuracy, with a relation of 60 Hz to 60 seconds mentioned.

- Bruce

War Department technical manual for wrist watches, pocket watches, stop watches and clocks

Download here:
http://www.90thidpg.us/Reference/Man...M%209-1575.pdf

I remember being told (my school mate's dad worked at ETSA in SA) that the AC frequency was adjusted slightly during peak demand hours (to help cope with demand) and that made the clocks slightly incorrect so the frequency had to be adjusted the other way later to correct all the plug-in clocks.

I remember mechanical watches not being so uncommon too. Even we working class kids had them and had to wind them up every day. And I remember one grown-up who had a watch that wound itself up as he moved his arm around during the day. Luxury!

I'm old enough to have navigated across oceans with nothing but a sextant, a nautical almanac, and sight reduction tables (look it up). Having accurate time was critical, so we had a special chronometer onboard that would periodically be synced with the time signal still broadcast by WWVB in Colorado. Listening for that time signal and then syncing the chronometer was critical since being off by even one second could put your navigation off significantly. Needless to say, we all had mechanical watches back then and I grew up learning to wind my watch first thing each morning. You might see soldiers in old movies syncing their watches by pulling out the stem, setting their watches to an exact time, then all pushing the stems back in at the same instant in order to guarantee each soldier was operating on the same time.

Being a retired sailor, we had to know the old methods.

One of the ship's Quarter Masters would visit all the spaces each day on the ship that had chronometers installed and would wind them and set them to the master time from the chronometer he carried. We always did a time check before a major evolution. Not sure what they do these days. It's an art that is slowly fading away with the new Navy.

I'm pretty sure that Naval navigators still learn celestial navigation, but of course very accurate time is available via satellites and even ordinary wristwatches. You can get home clocks that automatically sync with the time signals, so the clock in my father's kitchen is probably much more accurate than the chronometers we used to sail with. Even as recently as the 1960s long-distance aviators used celestial navigation (sextants) to cross oceans. Big passenger jets and military aircraft would have small clear domes in the top where the navigator could use the sextant to shoot the stars and sun.

Yeah I agree they probably to learn the skill or at least introduced to it. I retired in 2003 on the USS Juneau with 22 years of sea duty. One rarely sees anyone practicing celestial navigation on the bridge any more. In fact paper navigational charts, while still in use are being replace by the electronic variety. While I was on active duty there was always a chart on the chart table on the bridge. Several years ago I paid a visit to a US Navy vessel (a friend was stationed on it) that happen to be in port where I live, I noted there was no chart table on the bridge. I asked about it, the still have to maintain current charts but no long use them (my friend was a Quarter Master. Clang! (Sound of my jaw hit the desk) We had to save them and turned them in as a matter of record, like our deck logs. Records are saved electronically now.

Oh, on mechanical watches. I've never been able to wear one. They always freeze up after a few days. Even tried resorting to a pocket watch, same issue.

I'm a sailor and I will be using paper charts until I am gone. Sure, I use electronic charting too, but on a small boat there is always the possibility of losing all power and electronics are never reliable. Plus, with a paper chart you can see at once a large geographic area in great detail, but with a small electronic screen you are very limited in how much you can see at once unless you zoom so far out you have no detail. As to watches, I now wear cheapo plastic watches, particularly Casios, that keep near perfect time, are very durable, come in an infinite number of styles, and you don't cry when it gets destroyed. I notice that young people don't wear watches at all--just smartphones for time. As a consequence, I get asked the time a lot by people on the street who can see I wear a watch and don't have access to their phones for some reason.

Paper charts are like a good book, the electronic variety just doesn't cut it. Never thought about zooming in on a chart, I guess there is a limit on resolution or detail.

I quite wearing watches a long time ago. I use to keep a cheap digital with the non-buckle strap connected for easy grabbing in my pocket. I don't wear jewelry at all, aside from my wedding band. When I was active duty working on ship, that came off and was placed in my locker until I let the ship. There are to many things that can ruin your life on board a ship when wearing jewelty or anything that conducts electricity. These days it's my cell phone that keep the time for me and yes, a few wall clocks.

Yes! One reason I like the cheapo plastic Casios with plastic bands too. I've had a fancy metal band short out while working on the batteries onboard--not recommended! I find that I still check the wristwatch a lot even when carrying the cell phone in my pocket--much easier than pulling the phone out, and less chance then of dropping the phone.

Back in the mid eighties I I had a shipmate (a lucky one to boot) who got zapped from an arcing TWT tube while doing maintenance, he opened the access door on the side of the transmitter cabinet, the arc traveled about 12 inches to his watch through his hand to the cabinet door.

I totally get what you mean about the charm of mechanical watches. There is something special about the ticking and each watch's unique sound. It's a bit sad that digital watches have taken over the market, and the charm of the old mechanical ones is slowly being lost. I also understand why you don't wear any jewelry when working with guns or electronics. It's better to be safe than sorry. However, if you ever do decide to sell or pawn any old watches, you might want to check out New Bond Street Pawnbrokers (https://www.newbondstreetpawnbrokers.com/). They are a trusted company with many years of experience and expertise in the industry.

Welcome to EMD :)

I still wear one occasionally. The Orient "Bambino" v.2 is probably the best deal in watch-land. But to be honest most of the time my phone doubles as a pocket watch (a smart watch would be overkill for me).