After much searching, I have finally come across an antique shop selling WW2 military items who also happened to have some vintage pocket watches in very dusty conditions.
The shop was rather dark and full of knifes and helmets and military items. The shop keeper was very "cold" initially and when I first tried to wind up the watches, he asked if I intend to buy first. I was initially taken aback but taking consideration, the differences in culture as well as language barriers, I have decided to be extremely polite and friendly and asked if he has anything that are special and unique for sale as I was formerly a history student who is keen to buy watches with some history.
Following which, he went to a locked cupboard and took out some nice pocket watches. I was fascinated by them as the conditions are nice, one pocket watch is unique as it has an alarm function within the pocket watch. This is the first time that I have seen a pocket watch with alarm (below photo)
Without hesitation, I have decided to buy all 4 watches at Polish Zlotych PLD$3000, which is not cheap nor expensive. Out of the 4 watches, two were made by Mosers and the other two unknown.
In the evening, when I went back hotel to start the simple cleaning of these watches, I was pleasantly surprised by the inscriptions at 3 of the watches. One has the Olympic 1936 being incripted at the back case. My guess is that the watch was made to commemorate the hosting of the 1936 Berlin Olympic game. This is a pocket watch with an alarm function.
The second pocket watch was made for the police department.
The third was a real surprised as it was engraved with the name of the owner Waffen and together with the SS symbol, which was not easily visible. I didnt notice the name when I was in the shop as it was real dark.
According to the seller, Poland was under the rule of Germany during WW2 and there are some of these relics from the past..but not many left as many were destroyed.
These historical timepiece shall remind us not to repeat the mistakes we made in the past as well as the importance of peace and harmony.
Peace on Earth!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Check-in,Kloten,Switzerland
1 comment:
Dear Sir, maybe you know this already since this blog post is from 2012, but I felt I should tell you that the engravings are fake. In Eastern Europe it's very common that they take cheap older watches and give them fake nazi german engravings.
It's also very common that they give watches fake dials, that they print on the computer, with nazi symbols or people famous from history. They also make fake metal emblems to glue or solder on the watches. Then they sell the watches on street markets to tourists, or sell them on auction sites as "rare award watches".
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