Howard Pocket Watch

Wrote this a couple of years back...

I would just like to share a story about a timepiece that I got from my dad this year.

As a kid, I remember my dad using an old pocketwatch which he always boasted belonged to my lolo. He was using it as his daily timepiece and one day I noticed that he was back using his old Rolex all-steel Oyster Precision. I remember asking him where the pocketwatch was and he brought it out and said he dropped it and has been deemed irrepairable by a a watch repair shop in Escolta. It was in bad shape. The hands were all mangled and the glass cover cracked and separated from the watch already. That was that and the watch was put aside in the family safe to be forgotten. This was back in the early 70's.

Just last year, my wife was gifted with a pocket watch by my mother-in-law who visited Switzerland. For some reason, I remembered the watch that my father used when I was a kid. I gave my dad, who is now 87, a call and asked about it. He said it was in the safe. I asked him if I could have a look and he reminded me of the shape it was in. I went to my dad's house and looked at it. Boy, was it in bad shape! As I mentioned, the hands were mangled and the glass cracked and separated from the watch already. I took it home and started to tinker around with it. I started to wind it and I was shocked to hear a ticking sound! I looked at the second hand and it was moving! It was alive!!! I was staring at it in disbelief and my heart sank when I saw the hour and minute hands cut and bent out of shape. I placved some calls to some watch collector friends and was directed to call a schoolmate from the Ateneo, Rani Jalandoni, who had to study watchmaking to maintain his over 300 pieces of Omega collection. I brought it to him and he was amazed at the condition of this over 90 year old time piece. He said that it didn't even have to be taken apart for cleaning and all it needed was dusting. He replaced the hands with what he had and got a new glass cover for it.

The pocket is an 18K solid gold, 21 jewel Howard Pocketwatch (photos attached). It was built sometime between the 1900's and the 1930's when the company was still in existence. My dream now is to be able to bring it back to its original state–hands and the glass cover. Thanks to PenManila, I now have a place where they might know where I can have this done. Salamat po, Mr. Butch.