Hi everyone,

I recently won the auction on a local market. It’s a WW2 field watch, with unknown history and pretty much everything else.

I would love to restore the watch – disassemble everything, have it cleaned, polish the case and have it replated. Assemble the movement, adjust it ….

The issue is potential use of radium in the hands and/or the dial. I am very cautious about it, to the point of offering some money to the seller and leave it to be resold again. Or immediately resell it…

Radium radioactivity concern

Hello,
Here in Japan, I have noticed many vintage West End Watch Co. watches for sale online, many for extremely cheap. There are some obvious redials and pretty rough exmaples, but even genuine-looking watches seem to be pretty reasonably priced for a water-resistant military-type watch of their time. I’ve been thinking about getting one from around the late 30s-early 40s, but I have had trouble figuring out how to reliably date them, and to learn what makes a model more or less desireable…

WWII and Earlier West End Watch Co- Seeking Info

Hello All and Sundry,

When I get a new vintage watch and there’s not a lot of info or even pics floating around, or it comes in diiirrrty and cleans up well, I like to post it for posterity and others’ info. I find others’ threads like this to be super helpful when I’m researching vintage pieces and may as well add to the body of knowledge.

This is a 1965 Zenith 2400, rocking Zenith’s hand-wound caliber 2532C. Brilliant ~34mm jet-age all stainless watch…

1965 Zenith 2400 (cal. 2532C) – Auction find and quick clean up