Reply With QuoteWow! Thats brilliant! Your sooo lucky! Heres my Record that i love to pieces. Very special watches
We've just had a few days' holiday in Bologna and having criss-crossed the town a few times we wandered outside the ring road in the Orsola area (near the hospital) one afternoon. It was siesta time and I noticed a small shop with a few watches in the window, all for €10. Not surprisingly they turned out to be the usual chinese tat as was the jewellery and general detritus that was on sale. One watch, however did catch my eye. I didn't think much of it at the time - we walked a bit further and then sat in a park for an hour and read. "Come on", I said. "If we don't find out how much he wants for that it's going to torture me for the rest of the week". We all dream of a situation where a seller doesn't really know what they've got only the reality is that they've spent half a day looking at Ebay Buy-It-Now prices and have a completely unrealistic expectation of value. It'll only take 10 minutes, I thought, and then we can go and have an ice cream having snorted derisively at the high hundreds or €1000 being asked.
It didn't quite pan out like that.
Me. "Could I have a look at that watch in the window - the one on the fabric strap."
Seller. "Of course, no problem. I'm afraid that one doesn't work. It's quite old."
Me. "How much is it? Quanto... **pigeoni italiano** ..... etc" - you get a feel for how good my Italian is.
Seller. "Ten **unintelligble..unintelligible**.. euros."
Me. "Scusi, I didn't get that. Quanto **babble, babble, babble**" I thought he had originally said something like ten eighty, as in €1080.
Seller. "Ten euros. If you wait a minute I'll see if I can get a battery for it"
Me. "Don't worry. I think I have some at home."
SWMBO has worked out at this stage that I'm getting quite excited (I don't play poker for very good reason) and fishes a ten euro note out of her handbag as all I can find is a fifty. The seller insists on writing a receipt and we leave the shop.
SWMBO. "I think that guy must have had a little too much to drink last night. Did you see how much he was shaking when he wrote out the receipt."
Me. "To be honest I was putting too much effort into stopping myself from shaking so, no, I didn't notice that at all." At that point I think I leapt into the air in joy and did a little dance.
I have the Adrian van der Meijden WWW articles cached in Dropbox so I was already aware that I needed to look for a P on the back and a 5000 figure difference between the two numbers on the back. This one has both ticks in the box and the fixed bars are intact - looks like a nice honest watch. Some of the scratches on the back look fresh and I imagine that the shop made some attempt to get the back off - clearly without success. The crown looks like a replacement but I can live with that for now.
And here it is.
And with papers. The stamp is for a shop in Ferrara and I have no idea why that is.
I realise that I'm never going to beat Foggy's £18 GMT but this is the best I can do in the circumstances. The payback now, I suppose, is that I won't be able to pass a tat shop without combing the window for vintage watches but I'll have to live with that. Of the dirty dozen this is the one that I always said that I would have one day - it's a good size (38.5mm, for my wrist it's almost too big) and has the benefit of a full stainless steel case, unlike the ones from JLC, Lemania et al. To get exactly the WWW I wanted and at a proper fleamarket price seems almost too good to be true.
This wasn't the only serendipitous episode of the holiday so far. The same evening our restaurant bill was about €20 less than it should have been (even after we queried it) and the following day we met Dame Emma Kirkby (one of my favourite singers, particularly in my teens) in the Museum of Modern Art and I got her autograph. I think I might buy a lottery ticket when I get home.
Last edited by Carlton-Browne; 6th July 2017 at 16:48.
Wow! Thats brilliant! Your sooo lucky! Heres my Record that i love to pieces. Very special watches
You've made my day CB! Fantastic! Ten euros! I'm surprised you didn't haggle though?
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Congratulations - great catch!!
You're fortunate to have known what you were actually looking at. It's lucky the Seller didn't have time to pry the back off try and change the battery. :)
I would have probably bought a piece of Chinese tat for £500 instead!
Haggle - I was trying too hard not to dribble.Originally Posted by seikopath
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
Great little find and nicely told!
What a deal! Well done for spotting it...
Well spotted!
That bargain will take some beating, well done.
Lovely Story, well spotted, Sir!
Congratulations - and meeting Emma Kirkby too! Incredible voice - I've got a recording of The Creation with the Academy of Ancient music and her - it's one of my all time favourites. I think you did rather better than the poor sap on the Real Life Wheelers and dealers programme last night who thought he'd got a genuine Rolex for £16!!
Funnily enough, that was the one WWW I've already had and I flipped it. Every time I went to put it on I chose a Smiths W10 instead but then, it was quite a scruffy one. I'll have a smile on my face every time I put this on.
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
Great find and I agree, I think it is the most wearable of the WWWs. The crown is wrong but John at Obsolete Clocks and Watches will sort you out. He could probably sort out the mis-matched lume too. Enjoy.
WHY am I never so lucky
Woooow what a story,congrats!
That looks like a super compressor crown - should be worth more than 10 eur as well :).
You never have said whether you were able to get the battery changed.
Congrats and the best part is that you genuinely appreciate the watch
Fair play to you. Thats a superb catch. Love the story as well.
Really liked reading this, CB.
Especially the bit above.
Great story and great find, CB. Congrats!
Well done for going back, a great buy.
Great find!
I think the excitement of unearthing something like that for little money is more thrilling than paying the right money for anything.
Cheers,
Neil.
That's a lovely story. I think Emma Kirkby's voice is one of the most beautiful in early music, but the part about the watch is even better. Genuinely great find, enjoy it.
I am really pleased for you CB.
A genuine bit of luck, with no planning to even acquire a watch, then to come away with this.
Very cool, in fact.
Great spot, always pays to ask, u'd still be wondering what if otherwise, enjoy
This story gives me hope that all the time I spend looking at junk will eventually pay off.
What a great sory, with a nice result.
It is easy to get cynical that the days of finding genuine treasure amidst that tat are over, but stories like this prove the opposite.
Well done
D
You just made your holiday a very cheap one :-) And that in the land of vintage watches....
Just a little update. I sent the watch off to John Senior at Obsolete Watch Parts and it's had a service and gentle spruce up; including a new crown and stem, a new balance and breguet hairspring, a crystal polish and a bath. The last piece of the jigsaw will be a new admiralty grey NATO from Eddie and I've heard a rumour to the effect that it will be along available in good time.
Thank you, John.
Last edited by Carlton-Browne; 6th July 2017 at 16:51.
Love this story! Always hoping, but sadly yet to happen to me.
Nice find and great outcome.
Posting Permissions
