Reanm8er
Bronze Member
- Aug 17, 2018
- 2,283
- 3,556
- Detector(s) used
- WW2 Mine Detector, 2 Garrets and an Underwater Fisher (Older Machines)
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
Greeting Folks,
I'm posting this in Todays finds because it's appropriate for the day and it took me 8 hrs today to find it, seems right to me!
Many years ago, when I was relatively unschooled in the concept of provenance, I stopped at a yard sale nearby and met an old man there that really looked in bad health, (ashen gray)! At that time I was hunting scrap gold and silver with a side game in mechanical
wristwatches. I looked through the items and didn't even see a worthy tool to snatch.
As was my custom I always asked the homeowners about gold and silver jewelry and mechanical wristwatches. Imagine Samuel L. Jackson asking "What's in your sock drawer?"
He simply replied "Just this!". He opened his hand and showed me a sandwich bag with this really unique wristwatch in it. He handed it to me and I examined it with my loupe. There was a break in the bezel where the crystal mounted and I could see that at least the outer case was solid gold. When my attention returned to what he was saying I heard "I got in Normandy a few days after the landing! Well, you know if you see something valuable you proceed on what you see, not so much on what you hear. So, when he asked for 15 USD I payed him and was on my way. I was never one to tarry around after making a deal. After I got home, I did a bit of research and found out is was indeed a French watch. I’m trying to learn to use a new camera but here it goes.
The best I can find out is that this is a generic French watch that is (Recontoir) manually wound. I really wished I’d returned and asked him to tell me more about it but sometimes things don’t work out that way.
Best wishes and thanks for viewing! Happy and thoughtfully D-Day!
I'm posting this in Todays finds because it's appropriate for the day and it took me 8 hrs today to find it, seems right to me!
Many years ago, when I was relatively unschooled in the concept of provenance, I stopped at a yard sale nearby and met an old man there that really looked in bad health, (ashen gray)! At that time I was hunting scrap gold and silver with a side game in mechanical
wristwatches. I looked through the items and didn't even see a worthy tool to snatch.
As was my custom I always asked the homeowners about gold and silver jewelry and mechanical wristwatches. Imagine Samuel L. Jackson asking "What's in your sock drawer?"
He simply replied "Just this!". He opened his hand and showed me a sandwich bag with this really unique wristwatch in it. He handed it to me and I examined it with my loupe. There was a break in the bezel where the crystal mounted and I could see that at least the outer case was solid gold. When my attention returned to what he was saying I heard "I got in Normandy a few days after the landing! Well, you know if you see something valuable you proceed on what you see, not so much on what you hear. So, when he asked for 15 USD I payed him and was on my way. I was never one to tarry around after making a deal. After I got home, I did a bit of research and found out is was indeed a French watch. I’m trying to learn to use a new camera but here it goes.
The best I can find out is that this is a generic French watch that is (Recontoir) manually wound. I really wished I’d returned and asked him to tell me more about it but sometimes things don’t work out that way.
Best wishes and thanks for viewing! Happy and thoughtfully D-Day!
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