WHY BUY A VINTAGE WATCH

The men in my family were left vintage pocket watches handed down by my father who loved pocketwatches, wrist watches, vest chains, stick pins and all the adornments that the 30’s and 40’s offered a man. But my brother’s sons particularly loved their grandfather’s white gold open faced pocketwatch for the classic style and period scrollwork on the case and the beautiful delicately decorated mechanical movement which the boys thought looked like a work of art. They appreciated that you could never replace a vintage watch with one of today’s. I was thrilled that they realized the worth,
quality and appearance associated with a watch from another era. These watches are now family heirlooms.

My son, born in 1974, during the beginning of the quartz revolution had never seen a mechanical watch and when he did, he thought the movement was so “alive” and finely crafted that he resolved never to wear another quartz watch.

A mechanical watch (which by definition must have more than 120 parts) is powered by a mainspring within what is called a barrel; the mainspring is wound by hand or automatically by a rotor’ transmitting power to a complicated set of interconnected wheels; This is called the gear train. The train in turn is connected to the escapement mechanism which consists of a wheel and a pallet fork, which again transmits impulses to the balance wheel, making it oscillate. This oscillation provides the “tick” of the mechanical watch. The rotor on an automatic watch incorporates a weight which swings backwards and forwards whenever the wrist moves – converts to a rotary motion which winds the mainspring.

A BRIEF HISTORY ON ROLEX

Vintage Rolex Watch Info:
Ashton Blakey Vintage Watches Your best resource on the web for purchasing Vintage Rolex and other fine watches.
History: Hans Wilsdorf registered the trademark name "Rolex" in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, in 1908, using the company name Rolex registered on 15 November 1915. The word was simply made up, Wilsdorf was said to want his watch brand's name to be easily pronounceable. One story, which was never confirmed by Wilsdorf, is that the word "Rolex" came from the French phrase horlogerie exquise, meaning exquisite clockwork. Another story claims that Wilsdorf was riding a bus when he realized that "rolex" was the sound a watch made while being wound, In the book The Best of Time Rolex Wrist Watches by J.Hess & J. Dowling the