Frugal Fails: Watch Edition

Last Friday I went to a studio sale held by an antiques dealer. While this fella trades in furniture, I figured all dealers at some point end up with a big bag of watches because these are the things that tend to get put away in a drawer and forgotten. And over time they accumulate and the dealer sells off the lot of them.

So I went and I was right. So many watches! I bought two Ziploc Freezer bags full of timepieces. Most were plastic digital watches, but I was able to harvest straps and spring bars from them. About 30 percent were mechanical though. Again mostly cheap and busted up one or no jewel windups.  But there were a few treasures, namely the two Martina dive watches pictured above. Mortimer is a French watching criminal concern and these two examples have that super seventies vibe that makes one think of Jacques Cousteau or Steve Zissou or other adventurers of that era.

There was a handful of other working watches (pictured above) that I spent the weekend cleaning up (see below) so I could sell them in the Gracious, Good Etsy shop. The fail part is that I really want to hold on to the smaller Dive watch. I wish I was more mercenary.