How to spot a saddo! His hoodie match’s his watch!
How to spot a saddo! His hoodie match’s his watch!
Some people get obsessed with issued.
https://imgur.com/EMz182j
Ice collection thereOriginally Posted by watchlovr
A lot of old tat Colin ….. ha ha
I have worked on a military storage and repair depot for 37 years.
I joined the on site fire service in 1992. Necessary Inspections, maintenance and tests granted us an access all areas status.
This was the time that I became aware of the military disposal system. One of the buildings that we frequented had a Radiac storage location. It was on wandering round this room that my attention was brought to an 18 inch square, 2 foot tall wooden crate that was full to within an inch of the top of divers watches and G10’s awaiting disposal.
Easily 2000 watches, probably more.
The whole box would have been sold as a single lot at auction for possibly a few thousand pounds.
To the likes of Anchor supplies in Nottingham or somewhere similar.
At this time the first gulf war wasn’t long over and the tide of special forces books led by Mr McNabb’s account of the war were beginning to circulate. Consequently, all us younger types on station were SF barmy and we all wanted a black special forces watch.
There was a sympathetic store man who worked in this building who let us rummage through the box to see what we could find.
It makes me a little bit light headed to remember that “they” were all in the box.
I wasn’t knowledgeable at the time about the differences of models and manufacturers but besides probably about 70% of the contents being G10’s there were many, many CWC S/S divers, At least three different types of Precista’s, i now know that one of the types would have been the ‘82.
I wouldn’t have noticed the subtle differences between an 88 and a 89 and I thought the 93 looked odd with its asymmetrical case and tall crown bezel.
There were a few Omega’s and the store man said there was even a couple of old Rolex’s in there somewhere.
It all meant nothing to me.
All I wanted was a black special forces watch.
We scooped out handfuls of watches looking for black ones.
One was still ticking but the glass was cracked. One had a badly gouged case. The crown was missing from another. A couple looked in fairly good nick but weren’t ticking.
Matey said that the ones that weren’t working might just need a new battery as this was the main reason they were returned to stores
(Can you believe it)
He said take a few away and see if you can get them working by scavenging batteries from the ticking ones.
We took about a dozen back to the station and set about putting them in a vice and trying to open the case with a screwdriver and hammer.
(I ache at the memory)
We managed to get the backs off without causing too many scratches to the backs and eventually had four working watches in pretty good looking condition.
We took back the donor ones and that was me happy as a sand boy.
My watch was a 1992, I don’t remember the serial number.
It is now sadly long gone.
I later acquired an almost perfect condition one with the serial 001/00.
It is also long gone.
I must add that at the time, a “gate pass” could be issued to legally take possession of ex stores that were awaiting disposal. You signed a declaration that you would not sell it on.
The nostalgia of it all has made me a little sad.
What a great story....Hindsight really is a wonderful thing.
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