Living on opposite sides of the country didn’t offer much opportunity to get to really know my grandparents. My parents moved from the east coast – where they had both grown up – to the west coast while I was young. My dad got a job with a firm that he would ultimately work for until he retired.
There were infrequent visits, but between visits the distance was much more of a barrier, only a few decades ago, than it is now. Regular long distance (expensive) phone calls, and passing the phone around. It wasn’t the telegraph, but it sure wasn’t FaceTime.
So I didn’t know my grandparents well, but I did know things about them. My maternal grandfather had been a machinist. His wife, my grandmother, had raised a large family and was a proverbial “force of nature” to be reckoned with. I knew my paternal grandmother had worked in the county courts, and that my paternal grandfather was a watchmaker.
I have early memories of his desk – full of the specialist tools of his trade – in the office and workshop in the front room of their New Jersey home. But I was too young to be interested in “talking shop” with him.
He gifted me a watch, many years ago, and I remember him saying that to him a watch was no more or less than the quality of its movement. Everything else, he said “was just complications.” And that if you took care of a good watch, it would outlast you.
Before cell phones (and later smart phones) became ubiquitous and meant nearly everyone was carrying “a watch” in their pocket, I carried a pocket watch.
I liked that my pocket watch didn’t sit on my wrist and interfere while I was typing – something I spent (and still spend) a lot of time doing. When I started riding motorcycles, I liked that my pocket watch didn’t sit right where my riding jacket sleeve closure wanted to be.
And – if I’m honest – I liked that carrying a pocket watch was “a little odd,” and more than a little anachronistic.
When my phone started fitting in my pocket, for a while it replaced my pocket watch and was the only time-piece I carried.
I went back to carrying a pocket watch for a bit after seeing H4 at the Royal Museums on a trip to London, but it didn’t stick.
At some point, I bought a wrist watch. I don’t remember exactly when, or what prompted the purchase. Maybe Dawnise bought it for me. In any event, things have… escalated… since. These days I find myself with more watches than I have wrists to wear them on, which I think is a rough definition of a collector.
This all came to mind while I was looking at the details of a watch – its movement, really – and was stuck that it was accurate to “5-6 seconds per day.”
If you know nothing about watches, that probably means nothing.
If you do know something about watches that probably strikes you as either “pretty good,” or “pretty terrible.”
You might see it as “chronometer accuracy” or “much worse than a cheap quartz watch,” which are typically accurate to a few seconds a month.
Turns out both of these things are true, so “you’re right.”
Compared to a mechanical watch, a quartz watch is more convenient, more accurate, more reliable. Not to mention less expensive. And aside from changing a battery every year or so, they demand basically no maintenance.
Mechanical watches are something of an anachronism.
And to me there’s something fascinating, almost magical, about a mechanical watch movement. They’re delicate. Intricate. Mesmeric.
Springs, wheels, balances, escapements, all doing what they’re supposed to do, many times each second. Self-winding movements, with their semicircular rotor, are even more fascinating- reminiscent of our fascination with perpetual motion machines.
I mean, just look!
Still not impressed? Look closer…
The first mechanical watch I bought was a cheap open heart with an exhibition caseback – ‘cause even a cheap movement can be captivating to watch. I still have it, but I haven’t worn it in… forever.
Since then I’ve become more discerning about what I buy and wear. They’re something of an eclectic mix – often from small makers – the only thing they have in common is that they grabbed me.
Sadly, my grandfather died before I really “understood” watches. I sometimes wonder – as I did while writing this – what he’d think about the pieces I’ve collected.