Saved from the dumpster!

[Singh]

We were clearing out a deceased relative’s house the other weekend.  A cousin of mine was heading out to the dumpster carrying this shoebox full of pens, tie clips, rusted penknives, cufflinks, and other knick knacks that you’d see in a gentleman’s dresser drawer.  I caught a glimpse of a watch buried in there.   I reached over and pulled out the watch, took a glance, and knew I had something interesting. “Does anybody want this?” I asked. Everyone shook their heads. No one had any interest in an old watch. This was the final cleanup and all that was left in the house was junk no one wanted.  So the watch was mine.

Let's take a  look at the back:









So, what do you think it is? 




 







Lets take a look inside. I unscrewed the case and the innards appear to be pristine. What  did I get? The tuning fork should give you a big hint.











Anybody guess? At this point it should be obvious. 












It's an Accutron 218D M7.  circa 1967.









I made an appointment with a watchmaker to check it out. He said he's worked on these watches before. There might be an issue with finding the right battery for it. It takes a battery with 1.35 volts and modern batteries are 1.5 volts,  but I read that there’s a workaround to that. The Accutron is a fascinating piece of watchmaking history, so I’m excited to see if I can get it working again.

[Zed]

You did good mate,thats a very cool find 

[Whoey]

nice find...

[Grant Lamontagne]

"Junk no one wanted" huh?

Seems like pretty awesome junk if you ask me.  Maybe you should have had a good look at the pens and pocket knives too!

Def

[Whoey]

I have a few old pocket knives I rescued from a box of stuff that used to belong to my father in law that got mixed in with other stuff that was being stored for my wife in a storage room (I never knew him, he passed long before my wife and I met) they aren't really anything that special, but I feel it would be unkind to just toss them in the trash. If only they could tell us the stories they lived...

There's also several boxes of his (mostly used) stamp collection, I can't imagine there's anything much of value in there (I believe they've been checked before) but also something that might make some collector extremely happy to add to their collection some day...

[Singh]

No worries, Grant. All the other stuff was junked. The pocket knives were rusted and not of use, but if they were old SAKs I would snatched them up regardless.