Story of a watch that wanted to stay with me

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carlodwc

Story of a watch that wanted to stay with me

Post by carlodwc » Sat Apr 09, 2011 9:27 am

This story started in 2008, when I first discovered the watch forums. I always liked watches but my resources were always limited and at that time I owned a couple of Swiss Army watches, a mechanical Poljot an automatic Swatch and a Vostok. Then I discovered the watch forums and a whole new world opened for me. :grin:

I discovered the watches from Mr Fred Amos, and since he was also accepting trades, I traded my watches plus a whole bunch of cash for an Officer Watch and two Sea Shark watches. I loved the Officer watch and for that reason I never wore it. I was afraid of scratching it in some way, the strap was also too short for my wrist and so it sat in the beautiful wooden box unworn for months. :rolleyes:

As any WIS knows, part of the watch forums are the sales threads. Well for me the watch forums WERE the sales threads and I was looking through these over and over mostly to see what watches were there. At one point I decided to get some other different watches and since my watch fund has never been that prosperous, I had to flip the Officer watch. I closed a deal with another WIS who gave me a JSpring watch and some cash for it. The Officer watch went off to another home... However a few days later I received a communication from the buyer saying that the Officer watch was not keeping good time. I had no idea since I had never worn it at all. Since I wanted to ensure that the other WIS was happy and since he seemed to be concerned about it, I simply refunded him and sent him the trade watch back and told him to not worry and send the Officer watch back to me, it was after all still under warranty and I was not worried in the least. I thought it just needed some break-in period. This was in the Spring of 2009. A few days later the Bernhardt Officer watch was back with me, this time it had been worn and so I had no excuses. I put it on a Bond Zulu strap and put it on my wrist. Monitoring the time keeping I opened the back and adjusted it. After 24 hours it was keeping time within +/- 1 seconds. I was happy. For a short time only though... since perusing the sales forums instill a certain feeling in people that they do not own enough watches or not the right ones anyway or at least that there is another better watch to get. :o

I found another WIS who had a Victorinox Mach IV which has a similar movement as the Officer watch. I contacted him and closed a trade deal for the Officer. A few days later the Officer was gone and I had a Mach IV....

Fast forward to March 2011. I had bought another very nice watch from Mr Fred Amos, a Bernhardt Binnacle Anchor, installed new Sword hands on it and stuck the watch back in the box. I really liked that watch and again I did not wear it on purpose so that I would not scratch the finish etc. But since looking through the sales posts is something one cannot stop doing, I had again the flipping feeling... I mean the feeling that I had to get another watch and do another project. Well, I decided to put on sale the Bernhardt Anchor since it was brand new and great looking. After a couple of days of trade proposals that were not very inspiring I included in my post that I really would have liked a Bernhardt Officer watch, I kind of wanted to do another project with a watch that had the 6497 hand-wind movement.

I received a PM from another WIS and after a couple of back and forth we agreed on trading one watch for the other. At that point I also found out that this WIS was the same one I had traded the Officer watch to a couple of years earlier... I asked him and sure enough he confirmed that it was the case... :shock:

Now... what do you think of that?

A few days later I received the watch in just about the same condition as when I sent it off, with only a little wear showing. The other WIS took great care of it, I was happy. After receiving back and wearing it for a couple of days I decided that I really liked it the way it was and I did not want to do any project on it, minus a little tweak... :mrgreen:

I think I am going to move this watch over to the category of keepers, at least in my mind, since I don't have such subdivision of my watches... :shrug:


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The Officer watch is a great timepiece, 44 mm in diameter, made of 316 steel, 22 mm lugs, powered but a Swiss Unitas 6497 hand wound movement. While not a high beat movement, this is very reliable and can be adjusted quite easily to high standards.

The two things I did not care for were the original red seconds hands and the too short leather strap (my wrist is over 8"). I handled the hand by replacing it with a chrome one as you can see in the photos.

The leather strap was also replaced with a mesh bracelet, in order to make this fit well, I installed thicker 2mm springbars apparently made by hand in Switzerland... The result can be seen in the photos. I really like the dial and hands combo. The watch is nice and large but not too thick which makes it nice to wear even under long sleeves shirts. :cheers:


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The watch does have some lume but it is not really long lasting. What there is can be seen here. :think:


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I thought to share this story and some photos and I hope you enjoy them both.



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User avatar
meta4ick
Posts: 1272
Joined: Tue Dec 01, 2009 2:39 pm
Name: Rick
Location: DC area

Re: Story of a watch that wanted to stay with me

Post by meta4ick » Sat Apr 09, 2011 10:42 am

Good story, Carlo. Don't worry, you'll flip it soon enough lol We have a Mister Wu on the forum who can help you with that.

Some nice pics, too.




Rick.

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toxicavenger
President Tranny
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Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2010 8:25 am
Name: HeadDIK
Location: Colorado Springs

Re: Story of a watch that wanted to stay with me

Post by toxicavenger » Sat Apr 09, 2011 10:54 am

Carlo,I actully know who has Anchor right now and I was wondering if it was yours since it had the MCWW sword hands on it. Beautiful Officer and I have talked to Fred many of times about them. My only reservation has always been the no date window. But for the price the Officers is a beautiful and understated watch.

Great story!

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moishlashen
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Name: Leu Sanis
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Re: Story of a watch that wanted to stay with me

Post by moishlashen » Sat Apr 09, 2011 11:34 am

Cool Carlo.
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"I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude."

carlodwc

Re: Story of a watch that wanted to stay with me

Post by carlodwc » Sat Apr 09, 2011 2:19 pm

Thanks a lot for the kind words. I guess the WIS world is not that big after all... The internet also provide great avenues to have fast communications and exchange of data, photos, etc. that being part of a great forum and make friends exchanging views etc. becomes an easy task. :cheers:

I do want to do another project and I do need some funds... but for the moment this watch does not go anywhere... ;)

As a matter of fact, I don't know that I have anything I would want to flip right now... and I don't know if this is good, bad, worse or better... :shrug: :mrgreen:

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DoctorC
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Joined: Sat Feb 20, 2010 9:31 am
Name: Greg
Location: In my happy place

Re: Story of a watch that wanted to stay with me

Post by DoctorC » Sun Apr 10, 2011 6:59 am

Very cool! I'm with the other Colorado guy. I really like the looks of the Officer but no date window means its not for me. I'm keeping my eye out though and I may snag a Globemaster or Corsair someday.
Greg

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bigolac
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Name: Adam
Location: Wisconsin

Re: Story of a watch that wanted to stay with me

Post by bigolac » Sun Apr 10, 2011 10:11 am

Great story - I've had a couple of watches I've sold and later re-purchased (although they weren't the same exact watch) - sometimes the mind plays tricks on you...

- Adam
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carlodwc

Re: Story of a watch that wanted to stay with me

Post by carlodwc » Sun Apr 10, 2011 7:26 pm

Thank you and well, I have watches with date and some without. :shrug: I like to have variations on this, but I too like dates even if they are not a break dealer for me. ;)

I did not really know that i would like this watch so much until I got it back in my hands actually. Originally I just wanted it to do another custom job, but once i got it, I realized that I really liked it. A lot... :grin:

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toxicavenger
President Tranny
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Re: Story of a watch that wanted to stay with me

Post by toxicavenger » Mon Apr 11, 2011 2:16 am

DoctorC wrote:Very cool! I'm with the other Colorado guy. I really like the looks of the Officer but no date window means its not for me. I'm keeping my eye out though and I may snag a Globemaster or Corsair someday.
Doc, the blue/orange Globemaster I bought my Dad was a beautiful watch for sure. So you can't go wrong with it. :thumbsup:

a few pics I stole from the net.
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