Post pics of your watches Part II

My dubious history turned into ploughshares German watches after their annual regulating. The middle Alpina is running a few seconds a day slow, but I don't have a timegrapher, so it's a tad hit and miss. 😁 AKA gunthering(horological term). The other two are pretty much spot on. Not overpriced dealer speak "plus/minus a few minutes per day, as was and can be expected with vintage watches" ballsology.

I'm glad I was anal/nerdy/weird enough back in the day to grab a few contemporaneous straps when i could, when they were dirt cheap and more gettable.

Major aside, cos me: Goes for the book under it too. Many moons ago when the (easy to buy stuff) interwebs was new and being interested in WW2 aviation an' that, I bought a load of autobiographical books from the post war years, written by people who'd been in the thick of it on all sides of that conflict. Always went for first edition hardbacks with original covers(mainly because I like the aesthetic vibe of the time), and because I wanted the first out of the gate 'honest' scribblings before later editions toned some things down and the histories of why.

Case in point the above book; Stuka Pilot by Hans Rudel. Most decorated German pilot/anything of WW2. They literally had to keep inventing new medals for this guy. He sank a few battleships, took out countless tanks, gun batteries, trains and fortifications. Basically, if you were on the Russian Front on a bicycle painted green and not in "the Germans wore grey" camp, you were likely in trouble of being divebombed into atoms. He kept on fighting even when his leg was blown off(as can happen. Apparently) during one sortie. He even wanted to rescue hitler in his last days by flying a Stuka into Berlin to pick him up(No less of an authority; Eric "Winkle" Brown noted it was one of the few German aircraft that had very good brakes and short field performance). This guy was Insanely brave and skillful, but also a committed nazi. Kinda sours the milk really. He was also a puritan, even to his men, and possibly grew the notion of German folks having no sense of humour(they really do, but it can be very surreal at times😁). Legged it to South America, as nazis tended to do...

The German edition of the book had a second part about post war Germany and how he wanted to bring back the nazi party. As you don't. No. Really, you don't. Even for the cool uniforms(to be fair...). There was huge public interest in tales of that war, but no publisher would touch his. Save for one in Dublin of all places.

Needless to say they edited out his "Wahey! I'm a true blue nazi you know" second section. Douglas Bader wrote the foreword for the English language version. Very much a brave and 'plucky' chap on his own to be sure, made greater in the public mind by books and film, but also well known as a bit of a thundering prick on a few levels. Let's just say far more on the Right than the Left.

For me anyway and pretty much from my very early days of finding them as a teenager, a huge part of old watches is how they could connect me/us to another, often very different time, the folks who wore them and the history and stories they were witness to. They fulfill their primary purpose of telling the time, while also telling the time.

TL;DR? Too late. 😲😁

Going all Le France 1972 today.

C'est la Funkaaay and such. 😁 The profile is gas, real flying saucer stuff, as was the fashoon of the time.

Originally got it as an 80 quid spare donor/movement for another electronic Lip I have that had apparently died, but when it showed up in the post(loose, in an envelope😳) bravely ticking away, I didn't have the heart to tear it apart. 😔 The sap I am. 😁 So broke out the strong mugs of tae and got the dead one going again(still going too) and this one was saved.

Turned out to be very accurate too. Runs +6 per day, consistently. These Lip RR 134 electronic movements were, along with the Accutron, the first truly successful and robust battery driven watches. First with a date too.

But unlike the Accutron, which blew mechanicals out of the water, it uses a balance wheel in the usual thinking outa the box French way, by the power of magnets, impulses and magic pixies, so accuracy was around the same as a 'good' mechanical, if potentially a little more consistent(which is what I've found). Whoer to regulate though. Oh and that one ickle diode(to stop any potential arcing iirc) was how they could claim it was 'electronic', rather than just 'electric'. 😁 A few other brands(mostly American) bought these movements in during the 60's and 70's.