What Do You All Collect & Why?

Hi Chris,
I got into horology after suffering back problems and not being able to work for anyone as I have to rest up now and again because of the pain. It started as a hobby but as of December 2012 became a business. I do have an interest in pocket watches but my work involves clock repair and restoration. I seem to have a limited attention span and once I have learned how to do something I get bored and move on to another subject, probably why I have had around 50 different jobs since I left school. Horology is the only thing that has ever kept my attention and because there is so much to know and learn I cant ever see myself moving on to something else. The satisfaction of getting something working is another major factor in my enjoyment of this trade.
As for collecting, I collect tools as I think most horologists do, even if you know you might not need a certain too its always nice to have it just in case and I also seem to have built up a rather large collection of alarm clocks that people keep giving me although this is unintentional collecting.
Paul.

Hey Chris, my story is a lot like Paul’s. I started out in construction, almost 40 years ago. My wife and I would go to garage sales and small auctions on the weekend, buy old beat up furniture, bring it home, refinish it, and furnish our house. Once I became a cabinet maker, we graduated into buying antiques, restoring them and then reselling them (at least I would resell them) . About 20 years ago, 4 back surgeries, and too many operations on my legs to count, I was told that I had to retire. At 36 that was not an option, so we opened an antique restoration business, as kinda a hobby,or to get me out of my wifes hair. When E-bay came along, I noticed clocks did pretty well, so I started picking them up, when I could buy them cheep enough. We would refinish the cases, then sell them on E-bay. I bought a Trade mark clock, and a friend showed me how to put it in to beat. After that I could sell most of the clocks we found as working 🙄 . Since then I have wanted to know how to really fix one. I Now have a dozen or so clock of my own to work on an practice. I am hoping to get to the point that I can quit doing the big furniture and just do clocks. We do anywhere from 100 to 300 hundred pieces of furniture a year and I am getting too old to lift some of this stuff 😥 As far as collecting goes, we collect a little bit of everything. I lean toward clocks, toys, marbles., my wife, anything heavy 😥 As for the Trade mark, it has been running ever since my friend put it in beat almost 20 years ago. The movement was dirty when I got it, and it has not been cleand yet. Oh I did give it a good shot of WD40, when I first bought it

Paul, There is nothing like finding rare indian swirl, and watching everybody slobber over it 😆 Mahlon

As far as watches go I guess I have the usual collection of pocket and wrist watches that everyone else has. In 1971 I bought a UNIMAT and every attachment that I could get my hands on which includes the threading attachment and the thread drums with the followers. About a year later I bought a second UNIMAT used from a friend who was making pedal steel guitars at the time and needed a bigger machine. I then bought a 12″ ATLAS which I later sold and a 6″ ATLAS which I restored back to new condition and then later sold. Then another friend who owned a dental lab sold a watchmaker lathe (BOLEY) to me for $25.00 that I restored and still have. Over the years I have been buying and restoring watchmaker lathes both WW and Geneva style and now have over 50 machines. I plan to sell them in my later years but I want to offer them as kits in wooden boxes with accessories.
My brush with watchmaking came fairly recently in my life when I enrolled in the TIME ZONE WATCHMAKING SCHOOL and took all three courses. The head instructer there was a typical lab coat type who believed in a top down approach to watch repair instruction. When I enrolled in this program it fit my personalty better as this is an exchange of ideas program. By the way, thank you Bob for setting it up this way
I have a small machine shop and am able to make some of the parts and accessories with the equipment I currently have. The next major machine on my wish list is a 6 x 18 surface grinder but only time will tell if I ever get one. Anyway that is my collection.
david

Chris,
I have most of them stored on three shelves and did photograph them. My camera has color temperature compensation but I do not have the proper software to process the data from the camera. The camera also has a point and shoot format that the software will take and I took a few pictures (without the color temperature compensation) of my Unitron microscope and Bergeon lathe which I sent to Bob. The other machines are on three shelves in my machine shop and I will have to buy another computer program or change the lighting situation to photograph them. I will get them out there when I can get to it but my time is very tight at the moment. Maby Bob will post the pictures I sent to him up here or shoot them over to you on your emai.
david

Here are the pics.
Adios and enjoy!
Bob