Here is a lovely little mens watch circa 1940-50. Junghans is a german manufacturer and they produced their own in-house movements. Junghans are still producing watches to this day.
This watch came to me from a gentleman by the name of Bill Csatary. It was his fathers watch and he send this to me along with another watch that both had long since stopped working. The other watch has a great backstory and one that will be told in a video on my channel coming soon.
I decided to repair this one first. It would take a bit of work. First I found the movement had been coated in oil which only preserves and does not help it to run.
its a Junhans 80 movement and a nice little standard calibre. I do like any movement that is coloured gold!
Had to handle this one with care due to the radium dial lume. I wear finger cots and a face mask and be sure to clean everything well afterwards. Caution should always be taken when dealing with radioactive dials. The hands I suspect may have been re-lumed at some point in its life.
I had a few trip ups along the way. the ratchet wheel screw broke in the barrel arbour which caused some fun removing it. I was able to use a Seiko left handed threaded screw as its replacement!
also found the setting lever screw hole to be loose from wear and corrosion. I was able to crush the hole with a pin vice enough for the screw threads to get a grip and tighten.
As you can see its well past its best and should be changed really but as the watch will only be worn occasionally it will do for now. Parts are hard to come by for this calibre.
A full restoration video can be seen on this one here:
Or if you are short on time you can watch this YouTube 60 second short!
Here is Bill’s father, mother and himself as a young boy. We think his father is wearin the Junghans in this photo.
Finally photos of the finished watch.
