Post pics of your watches Part II

Ah no way. 😣 It's odd that it just stopped out of the blue in your watch box and IIRC it had been serviced recently too? At this more extreme end of the vintage wristwatch world they don't have shock protection and a broken balance staff can certainly happen, though that's something that's personally never happened to me(touch wood) and I've given a few of mine a clatter more than once. There might be a cracked jewel on the balance or something like that which could do it, but the service would have spotted that. The hands don't appear to be binding which could do it too. Maybe the balance just needs a very careful little shove?

Going by experiences online Trench watches can be extremely variable in reliability. One watchmaker guy on TZUK claimed they needed a service every six months, but that in my humble is an example of the purest 24kt bollocks. If one does it's pretty fecked service or not. When these were new or a few years old no way did owners expect to bring them in for a service twice a year. And that was with oils and greases that weren't up the standards of today. Whatever about some seven jewel pin pallet(and even then) this goes triple for a quality movement like yours.

Going by my own experience of them going way back I think they're a lot like cars. It's less about the age and much more about the mileage. Of the examples I've owned the ones with more tired looking movements and/or contrarilily lots of watchmaker marks in the caseback were more troublesome, regardless of age, but those that looked to have been put away into a drawer soon after were good even great performers.

Funny enough I saw your post when I was out on a job this afternoon and was wearing one of mine, and the best of them.

Have it now 30 years and it's been a extended daily driver at various points, with a lot of memories and life moments attached to it. I've broken a few crystals on it too(clumsy so and so that I can be) and it never fails me and remains one of the best overall mechanical timekeepers I've owned. I've had it serviced a few times, but not in a while as the guy I used retired years ago and tbh am wary of who do I bring it to now. It was definitely one of those low mileage examples when I got it. I'd reckon I've worn it more and for longer than the first owner.

Still I am surprised with a very high quality and well preserved all original one like yours stopping like that. 🤔😐️

Well it's a Borgel case Hitem, so the crown is spring loaded and you gently pull it as if you were setting the time on a normal watch and as you do counterclockwise(lefty loosey) unscrew the movement out of the case. Hopefully a picture paints a thousand words, even if it's potato cam..

Now mine has seen some action so is as loose as a penny strumpet, yours may tighter.

Care required then. It's defo a standard Borgel because it has a pinset for the hand setting, as there can be some vanishingly rare models that have a weird three position crown minus the pinset for greater sealing and they'd be a different bugger to unscrew. It's possible that the watchmaker may have put a small bit of adhesive as a threadlock to keep it secure? I've heard of that more than once. I seem to recall you saying the watchmaker advised not to try to look at the movement? Or that's more likely me having the fifth brainfart of today.

Still, it's a good sign of lack of use in its lifetime that the threads are so tight. In the examples I had only one was like that. These cases were quite "waterproof" when new when tolerances were tight. Borgel's advertising had a pocketwatch example that had fallen into a river during the Boer War and when found a couple of weeks later was still watertight and wound and set and kept good time. The problem was with silver being a very soft metal meant they wore out quite quickly with repeated opening. This was even more the case with the fully hermetic cases where you had to open them every time they were set or wound.

No sniggering at the back of the class from our Japanese readers.