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Goal ? [message #10169] Tue, 23 April 2019 16:04 Go to next message
MonKee is currently offline  MonKee
Messages: 177
Registered: May 2013
Location: Finger Lakes
Gruen Guildsman
Like many of you I have been collecting Gruen watches for some time now. I have a particular area of interest and about 90% of my purchases are pretty much confined to that area. Occasionally I will come upon a watch I find interesting outside my interest area and somehow it follows me home. Proving that I have to much time on my hands I got to thinking that while I have an area of interest I really don't have a goal. In other words I am not working towards something, I am just accumulating. So I am now curious, how many of you are accumulating just like me or do you have a goal you are working toward? Now I have set myself a goal and the bad news is I am only 50% there. The good news is I only need two watches to realize my goal.
Re: Goal ? [message #10170 is a reply to message #10169] Tue, 23 April 2019 16:35 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Barney Green
Messages: 1725
Registered: February 2014
Location: Wolfsburg, Germany
Gruen Authority
Hi Monty,

my goal is to have them all Smile
I know that this is unreachable und unrealistic, but this leaves me in the accumulating stage for some time. So I really have a goal, knowing that it cannot be reached I should better call it a vision. Having realized that my goal is only a vision I have to change my goal in about 8 years from now. Then the accumulation phase will definitely be over and I will start to intensively work on the watches which I now do only sporadically. The next in between goal is an exhibition of my watches in a local museum in about two years from now.

Barney


Gruen, Gruen, Gruen ist alles was ich habe... Gruen, Gruen, Gruen is all I have...(German folklore song)
Re: Goal ? [message #10171 is a reply to message #10170] Wed, 24 April 2019 03:00 Go to previous messageGo to next message
afire is currently offline  afire
Messages: 1311
Registered: May 2013
Location: Wisconsin
Gruen Authority
Nope. No goal, just parameters. If I could think of a goal that would be realistic, I would set it. But with 1920s and early 1930s Gruens, just about every subset you could define is amply studded with models that range between virtually impossible to find and possibly nonexistent. Not that I can afford to spend with reckless abandon, but even if I could, the watches I'd really like to obtain just don't seem to exist. For two of my white whales, the 1918 18k green military square, and Strap 73, I've seen orphaned movements with the dials that tell the sad story of scrapped cases, and that may be all I ever see of either of those models. But even those are just a couple of watches I yearn for, not a cohesive vision (to borrow Barney's spot-on term). I would say that Gruen's product line was just too sprawling for even the most dedicated and well heeled completist to come even close to tackling. A lot of us here are familiar with Mark, the owner of vintagewatchforums.com. I think his goal was to obtain every non-round watch Hamilton made before whatever year Hamilton ceased to really be Hamilton. And he achieved it. That's an ambitious goal, to say the least, with any brand. But it would be impossible with Gruen. Maybe you could come up with something achievable in Gruen's later years. Like every 440 Curvex? That might be doable.
Re: Goal ? [message #10173 is a reply to message #10171] Wed, 24 April 2019 04:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Gary
Messages: 2108
Registered: May 2013
Location: Left Coast
Gruen Authority
Cheerleader

Honestly I wish sometimes I had a goal that would slow this passion lust I have for timekeepers. Like Monty I have "other" timepieces that follow me home. As for Gruen I find my self focused in an era like the 20's for a time and then suddenly see something from the golden 50's and I re-focus there for awhile. There are specific pieces and items that I guess would be a goal but I tend to call my "list".

I've been a bad boy lately and this followed me home last week.

/vgforum/index.php?t=getfile&id=4519&private=0
/vgforum/index.php?t=getfile&id=4520&private=0

Back in the day I had to stand lookout duty aboard a destroyer I was stationed. On the bridge I'd would always sneak a peek into the quartermaster's shack and look at a beautiful Hamilton 22 chronometer they used to keep time throughout the ship. The analogue Navy...Anyway this one is a 1918 Waltham that served 2 world wars.
  • Attachment: Waltham.jpg
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  • Attachment: Waltham_7.jpg
    (Size: 329.36KB, Downloaded 956 times)
Re: Goal ? [message #10175 is a reply to message #10173] Wed, 24 April 2019 17:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
afire is currently offline  afire
Messages: 1311
Registered: May 2013
Location: Wisconsin
Gruen Authority
Gary, you might enjoy the Wikipedia page on John Harrison, the creator of the first successful marine chronometer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison
Re: Goal ? [message #10176 is a reply to message #10175] Wed, 24 April 2019 20:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timeliz
Messages: 602
Registered: May 2013
Location: Northern California
Gruen Master
WOW! That's a beauty, Gary

"Some days are diamonds, some days are stones..." -John Denver
Re: Goal ? [message #10180 is a reply to message #10176] Thu, 25 April 2019 23:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timeliz
Messages: 602
Registered: May 2013
Location: Northern California
Gruen Master
Gary,

You can take a peek down memory lane at this Hamilton 21 here :
https:// atgvintagewatches.com/military-watches-forum-nsn-6645-a/7372 -incoming-hamilton-model-21-ships-chronometer.html

Darn! Now I want one. Confused


"Some days are diamonds, some days are stones..." -John Denver

[Updated on: Thu, 25 April 2019 23:16]

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Re: Goal ? [message #10182 is a reply to message #10175] Fri, 26 April 2019 21:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Gary
Messages: 2108
Registered: May 2013
Location: Left Coast
Gruen Authority
Cheerleader

afire wrote on Wed, 24 April 2019 17:33
Gary, you might enjoy the Wikipedia page on John Harrison, the creator of the first successful marine chronometer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison
John yes what a good read that is. I was a radar man aboard a Vietnam era class destroyer in San Diego in the big hair days. I didn't make much and could not afford an apartment. My home was aboard ship in and out to sea. Us radar guys also did chart navigation along with the quartermasters who also did navigation. This was a check against each other to give the captain a good sense of where we were in relation to PIM, point of intended movement on the chart and how far we were off track. We had an early version of GPS but it was always way off and could not be trusted for an accurate fixes. We mainly relied on precision time, latitude, radar and visual fixes with land and stars, also dead reckoning with a plotter tied into the ships gyrocompass.Very Happy We still carried sextons to take star fixes at night.

Goes to show how Harrisons inventions were and are still used today. I'm almost certain ship still have clocks, quartz I presume and probably use it as a backup to GPS as GPS has gotten more accurate.

[Updated on: Fri, 26 April 2019 22:29]

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Re: Goal ? [message #10183 is a reply to message #10180] Fri, 26 April 2019 22:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Gary
Messages: 2108
Registered: May 2013
Location: Left Coast
Gruen Authority
Cheerleader

timeliz wrote on Thu, 25 April 2019 23:15
Gary,

You can take a peek down memory lane at this Hamilton 21 here :
https:// atgvintagewatches.com/military-watches-forum-nsn-6645-a/7372 -incoming-hamilton-model-21-ships-chronometer.html

Darn! Now I want one. Confused
Liz that clock is the same one we had on our ship, beautiful! I can still recall the quartermaster setting our Chelsea clocks to the time he obtained from the Hamilton chronometer using his Hamilton deck pocket watch to transfer the correct time to all the clocks throughout the ship.

We have a Navy doctor in our clock organization who served in Korea era that works and collects these Hamilton chronometers. He put one up for auction last year and it went for $1,000. Now I'm thinking that was a steal. I'm sure he will put another one up for auction this year, I ask him if he intends to.

There is a lot of information on the Waltham that I'm seeing now. These clocks were the first mounted chronometers purchased by the Naval Observatory. These were standard 8 day 7 jewel car clock movements but were made to the observatory's standards like having an upper diamond cap jewel, gold balance, double roller escapement and sapphire roller jewel.

Here another picture of the clock showing it's double box, also a 1917 ad from Life magazine I believe.

/vgforum/index.php?t=getfile&id=4530&private=0

/vgforum/index.php?t=getfile&id=4529&private=0

/vgforum/index.php?t=getfile&id=4531&private=0

[Updated on: Fri, 26 April 2019 22:17]

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Re: Goal ? [message #10184 is a reply to message #10183] Fri, 26 April 2019 22:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Gary
Messages: 2108
Registered: May 2013
Location: Left Coast
Gruen Authority
Cheerleader

Monty,

I have to apologize to you personally for going off topic here. I guess this where our goals turn into new discoveries.

Gary
Re: Goal ? [message #10186 is a reply to message #10184] Sat, 27 April 2019 02:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
MonKee is currently offline  MonKee
Messages: 177
Registered: May 2013
Location: Finger Lakes
Gruen Guildsman
Absolutely no problem whatsoever. Memories of things from our youth in many ways shapes our interests and our goals. I am happy you were able to acquire one of yours. I have a soft spot in my heart for the tuning fork Accutrons. People today can't begin to understand how revolutionary these watches were and the effect they had. Back then I couldn't afford one but somehow several have followed me home somehow since then.
Re: Goal ? [message #10239 is a reply to message #10186] Thu, 02 May 2019 03:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mikey is currently offline  mikey
Messages: 709
Registered: May 2013
Location: Paris, Ontario
Gruen Master
Love those boxed Chronometers! MonKee.... if you have a soft spot for Accutrons, the WTF forum has an active and very knowledgeable group for those watches. https://www.watchtalkforums.info/forums/forum.php

Still here....
Re: Goal ? [message #10408 is a reply to message #10239] Tue, 04 June 2019 01:34 Go to previous message
Timeticker is currently offline  Timeticker
Messages: 568
Registered: June 2013
Location: Somewhere in the world
Gruen Master
I need to send my Accutron off because although I can hear the fork hum, the hands will not advance. The one I have is a rare beauty, too!


People you thought were your best friends will stab you in the back to your face!

Love them anyway.
A "Paradoxical Commandment"
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