**** Mfas lock-down edition **** round one ****

[is that my watch]

Ladies and gentleman this is the first round of the more for a score comp we have been doing.


For those that may not have seen them before we do a comp every now and then when members ask for it been doing them from almost the start of IWL... so the plan buy a watch has to cost under £20 pounds ( or what ever your local currency is to that sum ) plus post (here most try to get the post as part of the £20 pounds - but did say a small amount was over look-able if not excessive )


Then you wait for them,and clean and fix them up if they need it and see whose one wins the most votes and they win a badge .. the glory ..bragging rights... etc etc


Ok first two pulled are : 7) pip - braddon vs 5) matt - replay

pip - braddon

So here we are, after many failed auctions from around the world and a mechanical that was beyond reasonableness to fettle into shape I settled on a non-running Casio kindly donated to me along with another digi from ISMY. Complete disassembly and about an hour cleaning revealed some battery damage and corrosion. Quite a lot in fact, all hidden behind and beneath as the battery damage so often is. So much so that I feared for the circuit board, and after reassembly, tweaking some broken parts together and a new battery and reset... nothing. I think donor parts should be pretty simple to come by however, I’m out of time for that.
So on to the next digi - this one working but with a very dirty screen. It was a two minute job to clean that one up and put a strap on it (19mm so I only had one or two spare that would fit) and she’s good to go. Now I just need to get a vote or two, so here goes...
The watch in question is a Braddon. Some say that this was a secret collaboration between Bregeut, Audemars, Omega and Nevada-Grenchen, although others insist that it is cheap muck farmed out in China by the barrel load and given away with the purchase of five gallons of petrol in most service stations. You must make your own mind up as to its provenance.
The chrome case, which would have looked miraculous to eyes as recently as the 19th century, houses a movement that would have had the teenage George Daniels shaking his head in awe at it’s other worldly construction with its electrons racing around the board to microscopic circuits before being turned into ones and zeros that fired on-off switches. These in turn sent power via zebra strips to make clear segments of crystal instantly darken as if an unseen hand had inked them in. Numbers appeared, all in order and ever changing to keep up with the changing seconds and minutes of the day. And depress a pusher and behold - the numbers disappear to be replaced instantly with the date as if by magic.
So mechanical watches, with the last gasps of the pre-industrial era wheezing through your asthmatic wheels, step aside. There is magic in the air. There is magic on my wrist. I present for your pleasure - The Braddon.

*edit: found a bracelet that (mostly) fits.

matt - replay

Once upon a time, Mussolini made the trains run on time. Sadly, like so many stories, it's just not true. He made certain expresses carrying journalists and dignitaries run on time, and damn the chaos elsewhere. Sound familiar? However, after the war, the Italian rail network actually started to be something to be proud of and became a symbol of the new high tech Italy. While the Cortebert spin off Perseo had the monopoly during the fascist period, after the war, the Ferrovie dello Stato came up with a loose specification for an Italian State railway watch and accepted tenders from pretty well anyone who could meet the slightly less than exacting standards. As long as they looked nice...

Which they did. Universal Geneve, maker of cult watches to the gentry, produced a series of watches for the Ferrovie dello Stato that still manage the remarkable feat of having been cult watches for as long as I've been collecting without every flying anywhere but under the radar. However, there are a whole raft of even less well known FS watches by all sorts of manufactures. All share the FS logo on the back and most come with a while enamel dial with blued stick hands. So while I have no idea who Replay are or even if they are a brand or just the model, I can tell a nice FS watch when I see one.




And I'm looking at one right now.



The movement, a Unitas 6378 is a rock solid movement but the level of finish hints at where the money was spent...



However, the watch survived a few days of scrambling in Snowdonia before being cleaned and fettled - which is barely true of its owner... I'm pretty sure that this is my entry as the screw in the Girard Perregaux isn't succumbing to alum fast enough.




voting will be done as a view-able vote so those on tapacrap who want to vote can just say here and then when voting finishes will add those to the score on tallying up .. every one is welcome to vote whether they enter anything or not


As always Ismy

[tribe125]

Pip makes a powerful case for the technical virtuosity of the seldom-seen Braddon, but the Replay is exceptionally stylish for a watch that is about utility. That’s Italians for you.

My vote goes to Matt.

[crownpuller]

My first LCD was of similar 'prestige' to the Braddon, and I get very nostalgic about them; particularly the early slow ones where you can almost see the electric current 'filling up' the numbers as they change.
I feel for Pip's tribulations in getting an entry, but I'm going to have to vote for the one I'd actually wear and that's Matt's Replay.

[is that my watch]

this is coming a long nicely remember any one can vote for their fav whether they entered or not

[is that my watch]

My first LCD was of similar 'prestige' to the Braddon, and I get very nostalgic about them; particularly the early slow ones where you can almost see the electric current 'filling up' the numbers as they change.
I feel for Pip's tribulations in getting an entry, but I'm going to have to vote for the one I'd actually wear and that's Matt's Replay.

well I did wear the lcd briefly before I threw it in as an extra just encase so hmmm by that logic bet you can guess who I went for

[is that my watch]

voting runs til sat on this remember

[Matt]

The write up alone is Rolex standard and the amount of effort has been ridiculous, so I’ll take the traditional road and vote Brandon.

[crownpuller]

... vote Brandon.

Who he ?

[Pip]

Politeness dictates that I vote for the opposition, and when it's the one that's probably my favourite out of all the entries on the other thread it does make life rather easy.

[is that my watch]

Last day to vote guys/girls