In statistics—a big part of my day job—an often misunderstood idea is “regression to the mean.” This is sometimes misinterpreted as some sort of mystical process where the universe balances… Read more »
My stash of watches to fix is slowly shrinking, and I’m reaching some interesting and complicated cases. Here’s the current patient: a big, chunky Illinois pocket watch. This is an… Read more »
One of the nicer watches in my stash of “fix someday” watches is this old Waltham pocket watch. I picked it up for a good price some years back at… Read more »
Usually I buy parts to fit a broken watch, but other times I buy broken watches to fit my supply of parts. After working on the Elgin 315 we saw… Read more »
My backlog of broken watches is shrinking, and next in line is this charming little pocket watch. This is an Illinois 404, a 12-size pocket watch from around 1915, according… Read more »
If a watch runs well—it is clean, free of flaws, and running with good amplitude—it can usually be adjusted to be more accurate across different positions. And then we have… Read more »
When you fish for pocket watches in the murky waters of eBay, estate sales, and pawn shops, you’ll find some seriously mistreated watches. A certain kind of person, when finding… Read more »
I’m often asked for advice about buying pocket watches as gifts, and it usually looks like this. Someone who doesn’t know anything about watches has a son or spouse… Read more »
Elgin made over 50,000,000 watches, so they aren’t rare. But this Elgin pocketwatch is rare in a way—I bought it at a small-town antique mall for a sensible, fair price…. Read more »
I’ve been trying to do fewer Illinois pocket watches, and I did manage to stray into some offbeat Russian watches, but the heart wants what it wants. That’s why we… Read more »