...says who??
Amongst us vintage collectors, there is always the challenge of just how much one can / should invest in a particular piece, and often as painful as it is - one needs to take a decision to skip on a particular piece, as it simply is not worth paying good money for bad.
However, sometimes it's a also about "taking a chance" and applying what one has learnt over the years from the experts who regularly post here.
Take for example this particular piece that came up on the radar screen.
Total Loss - Right !
Studying the case as best I could in the rather dismal photos - I was struck by the darkness of the metal - yet at the same time, it appeared shiny. It was not black in color (like Watch # 22 - Oxidized Steel) but appeared to be evenly dark all over as opposed to what we normally find on old silver cases, where the tarnish is heavier in places. It was also relatively old, and definitely not stainless steel, so I deduced it might be a Nickel case. And I did not have any Nickel cased IWC's in my collection.
Now what also intrigued me here, was the location of this piece - very far off the beaten track. So I started to check serial numbers..
Date showed up as old - but not early IWC. However the Date Your IWC utility was showing it as a Cal. 57
Cal 57 - Ligne 19 H6 : So a large pocket watch
And as I only have Cal 57T Americane (Ligne 18 H5) in the Collection, I was more interested and secured the "wreck". The price I paid was IMHO very reasonable. Yet, I dared not tell or show photos of it to MF purely out of fear he would advise me to seek urgent medical help.
Pocket watch arrives and we strip it down. Well we already knew, that that dial was history...
BUT I was right on the case metal - it was Nickel! And indeed the movement was a Cal.57.
What to do with it? So we said - lets look if it can clean up, and my watchmaker gave it a light polish.
Yaba daba Doo ! Wow - I like that !!!!
Mirror like Shine
So lets see what we have in the spares department as regards genuine replacement dials. Oh Oh - this is a BIG Pocket watch and needs a dial size I have not yet come across before. So the search began. This is the part I love so much.....
Searched Hi and Low - no luck. It's tougher to find than I thought. So I needed to speak to some of our friends, and finally I got a lead. Yes, someone in Switzerland has two original dials that would fit - each dial with a different dial layout. So, I could even chose. And as the hands (look Ma - No hands....) needed in any case to be replaced, I went with the dial which had Italics as opposed to Roman numbering and the hands that seemed right for the watch, and similar to what I saw in the vintage catalogs. As MF points out, the dial logo indicates it's a late era dial - but beggars cant be chosers and it's original IWC dial.
And look Ma "We clean up Nicely" - hope you like the results.
And oh by the way - no excuses anymore to turn up unshaven. Total clean up including replacement dial and hands and professional fees for watchmaker including the original costs of the watch plus shipping - way under the going price of a complete similar era watch on eBay and other watch sites.
I am one happy Collector.
In a part II of this post, I will show some photos taken by my watchmaker whilst busy with this restoration.
