Re: Timeless & Tieless (was Captain John's Chronometer and Barometer


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Posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on December 15, 2008 at 09:24:12 user ACB.

In Reply to: Re: Timeless & Tieless (was Captain John's Chronometer and Barometer posted by Peter H on December 14, 2008 at 13:45:07:

Being sisterhookish for a moment, I think I am right in saying that waterproofing has always been confined to wrist watches, and that it comes in two forms - the seriously expensive, such as the Rolex Oyster case, contemporary with the books, I think, which is watertight but can be opened and resealed for adjustment and repair, and the cheap version, where the case is watertight but cannot be resealed because it is not intended to be opened for repair, the movement being a cheap one - a pin pallet movement, in the case of a mechanical wristwatch like the Timexes and Ingersolls of my own childhood, which were a post-War innovation, or a quartz watch, in the case of my children - which is why jewellers don't guarantee watertightness after changing the battery...

(I have a fine specimen of a pin pallet movement on my wrist at the moment, a "Rolex GMT Master", automatic, complete with hack work, which I acquired from s street vendor in Shanghai for £15 ... it runs very well and is in its own way a triumph of mechanical watch making!)

I think we are seeing a change in consumer durables coming in during the writing of the books - I cautiously suggest that in 1929 a pocket watch was more likely, whilst in 1939 wrist watches were commonplace.


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