#myspecialwatch 1

In the #myspecialwatch series, I will be posting stories about what people recall as their special watch. These are personal stories about how they got the watch or why is it special. Here I will be starting with my special watch, my first mechanical watch.

My first watch was a cheap quartz with some cartoon character on the dial, but those are the watches I do not have any memory of. I have also had digitals and several quartz watches, but my first proper watch was a Swiss mechanical, a Roamer Popular that belonged to my deceased grandfather.

I found it during a genealogy project, when I was sorting out old photographs, it was missing a spring bar and the crystal was slightly cracked. I took it for myself but then my father took it back with an intention to have another spring bar, a crystal, and a strap installed for me to enjoy it. Sadly, I broke the balance staff a year later. It took me another year to find a suitable replacement for it to become working again.

The watch was then serviced for the first time since it was purchased in 1962 and is now keeping time wonderfully. It is a special watch that would never leave my collection. A surprising fact was that the watch had an MST 372 movement, that was never included in the models that were targeted for the Indian market, it will always remain a mystery as to why this watch had this particular movement.

For those of you seeking technical information, here we go...

The movement mentioned above is MST 372. MST 372 is a mechanical movement that was developed and made in-house by Meier and stüdeli. It is a 17 jewel hand-wind movement with a 48-hour power reserve. It uses Roamer's own shockproofing mechanism.

What I find aesthetically pleasing about this watch is that this watch's red-tipped seconds hand. The watch's dial is faded, water damaged. The watch's dial is beautiful in its own way and is one of the superior variants of the lower-end popular model. I kept the watch on nylon, Zulu-ish strap which is a single pass strap, as my grandfather wore this watch on a similar type strap.

For those of you who do not know, Roamer was a beautiful and great Manufacture d'horlogerie. The watches were great, robust, and swiss. This watch is no Haute horology but still, is my favorite and most cherished possession.