Library of Congress Flickr Feed

Tags:flickr, library of congress.

Here’s something awesome I just came across. The Library of Congress has a Flickr feed where they publish a stream of photos from their archive. It’s well worth checking out. I added them as a contact so that I can see their newest additions on my Flickr home page. Fascinating stuff!

Further Musings on Mechanical Watches

This is a reprint of a post I made at the National Association of  Watch and Clock Collectors forum on the reasons why I wear an expensive mechanical watch and not a more accurate $10 quartz:

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To me the appeal of a fine wrist or pocket watch is the fact that it’s a crafted mechanism. A little, hand made machine that does one thing and does it well. As such it has a heart and soul that quartz movements simply don’t have. A battery watch, as beautiful as the case, hands and dial may be, simply isn’t alive with the human spirit in the way that a mechanical watch is. There’s an allure to the idea that someone designed each wheel, each pivot, each plate and so forth. They’re individual in a way that mass produced electronic watches aren’t. You can hear them beating out the time. They seem alive and vital. Add to this the rich history of mechanical watch making generally, company history, model history and individual watch history and you have an incredibly compelling device that’s far more nuanced than a piece of electronics.

And furthermore, one of the best things about a wind up watch movement is that you put the power into it yourself. When you wind it you give it the motive force. Each tick releases energy that you inserted. It can’t run without your power, yet it’s independent from the impersonal chemistry of a battery. A mechanical watch in good working order will beat out the time in any situation as long as you wind it up and set it, but a battery watch is a paperweight if the cell goes dead and you have no source for a new one, regardless of the condition of the movement itself. Imagine, for example, trying to find just the right battery for a 60s era electronic watch a hundred years from now. Not an issue with a mechanical watch, many of which are well over a hundred years old and work perfectly by simply winding up the mainspring. A mechanical watch enthusiast has a kind of symbiotic relationship with the device.

This is the exact reason that I collect vintage cameras too. Though I love my modern Nikon DSLRs, they don’t have the spirit of a fully mechanical Leica or Rolleiflex. A printed circuit doesn’t compare to the wheels and gears of a mechanical camera’s works.

My Great, Great Grandfather’s Pocket Watch

Tags:1873, 19th century, pocket watch, welsh fusee.

Many years ago my father gave me a pocket watch that’s been in my family for five generations. It didn’t work, and I didn’t know anyone who could fix it, so it sat in my drawer for a very long time. Then, recently my brother found a watch repairman who was interested in servicing it. His name is Tom Patana, and if you need a watch repaired, I highly recommend him. You can contact Tom at 503-283-0070.

Tom spent about 12 hours working on the watch. It broke over twenty years ago and had spent the intervening years sitting in a drawer. As a result it needed a lot of delicate work to get it back in shape. Interestingly, one of the ruby jewels had broken and had to be replaced, something Tom was very surprised to see.

The watch is now in excellent working condition. It’s got a strong, even beat to it and it’s been keeping very accurate time for the last week, losing only about 30 seconds every two or three days. What makes that even more impressive is that the watch is 137 years old.

After some research, here’s the history of the watch as far as I can determine:

In the mid 19th century the Hughes family resided in Wales where they were coal miners. They lived in the heart of the region that produced nearly 2/3 of the world’s coal at the time. Around 1870 my great, great grandfather Joseph J. Hughes met his future wife Jane Baxter. Jane and her family were from a small Welsh town called Llanidloes and when the two got married I believe this watch was given to JJ. Hughes as a wedding gift by Jane’s father Lewis Baxter. The movement in the watch is engraved with the name of the watch maker (William Williams) and the town the watch was made in.

The watch was made to order, the movement manufactured in Llanidloes and the case made in London. The silver assayer’s marks indicate that the case was finished in 1873 and show that the silversmith was John William Hannon who had his studio at 11 Sekforde Street, Clerkenwell, London.

The watch is a type of machine known as a “fusee movement.” All mechanical watches are powered by a wound up main spring that provides the motive force to move the gears around. When the main spring is freshly wound it releases more energy than when it’s run down toward the end. That means that without compensation the watch would run faster when the spring is wound tight and slower when the spring is wound out. To account for this variability the fusee movement uses a very small chain (like a bicycle chain) that wraps around a cone shaped barrel. When the watch is tightly wound the chain releases less energy to the watch and as the watch winds down the chain releases incrementally more power, making for a very even power distribution across the entire wind range.

The gears or wheels in this movement are jeweled for smooth motion. I believe this watch has 15 – 17 jewels.

Fusee movements were very popular in 19th century England and it’s a testament to the craftsmen behind this watch that 137 years after it left the watchmaker it’s still running strong and keeping excellent time.

A watch of this type was an expensive purchase back in 1873. Here’s a quote from a helpful watch historian who helped me figure out some of the watch’s history:

In Priestley’s seminal book on watch cases, he refers to some archives (dated about 1870) of Benson Bros in which they quote the cost of making a hunter case (excluding case metal) at 12 shillings. Priestley says the gold cost of a 2 ounce 18K case at that time would have been 6 pounds 7 shillings, so I’ll guess that Sterling silver would have cost at least 1 pound. Allowing for the cost of the movement, and the profit margin, my wild guess at what it would have cost to buy this watch is at least … FIVE POUNDS. I do know that a particular top of the range movement in a heavy 18K gold case in 1898 did cost £30.

The average miner’s wage in 1873 was 1 pound 13 shillings which had reduced to 1 pound by 1879. So this watch probably cost anywhere between three and five weeks gross earnings !!!!! That would be the equivalent of £1500-2500 today.

The current exchange rate for Pounds to Dollars is about 2:1, so the contemporary cost for a watch like this one would be in the range of $3,000.o0 to $5,000.00. That’s more than I spent on my latest computer, and the chances that it’ll still be in service by 2143 are absolutely nil.

JJ. Hughes, his wife Jane and Jane’s parents all came to America in the late 1880s. They moved here because the coal mines in Wales were drying up. Some of their relatives had moved to America earlier and found work in the coal mines of Kentucky, and that’s where JJ. Hughes and his family ended up. They settled in a little town called Pittsburgh in Laurel County, Kentucky. JJ. Hughes probably passed this watch on to his son JL. Hughes but it’s unlikely that JL used it much. JL Hughes was a railroad conductor and he carried a 1911 Hamilton 992 watch, which was a “railroad standard” time keeping device accurate to 30 seconds per week. The old Welsh fusee watch simply wasn’t accurate enough (or approved for use by his employer) to do duty as a railroad watch. So it probably sat in his drawer, maybe only coming out for special occasions. When JL Hughes died the watch became my father Harold E. Hughes’s, but by that time (the mid 1960s) men were wearing wrist watches almost exclusively. My dad put it in a drawer and there it sat until he gave it to me all those years ago.

Long story short, this watch has seen the inside of a lot of drawers, but now it’s back to life and clicking along happily.

If you’re an astute reader, you’re probably wondering why I refer to this as my great, great grandfather’s watch when the story above indicates that it’s actually my great grandfather’s. As some of you know, I was raised by my grandparents, so the man I refer to as my dad is actually my grandfather. My biological father has been “out of the picture” since I was only a few months old.

Though the watch is strong and keeping good time, I’m going to place it in a glass dome display case and keep it in my office. It’s just a little too delicate for day to day use, but it’ll be a fantastic desk clock with a rich family history.

New suns

Tags:ray-ban, sunglasses, wayfarer.

 

These Ray-Ban Wayfarers are awesome! My new suns for summer ‘09.

Portland Neon: Show Me Your Favorites

Tags:book, history, neon, photography, portland, vintage.

At long last I’m finally ramping up on a photography project I’ve had in the works for a few years now. The idea is to build up a catalogue of  the best neon signs in and around the Portland area with the ultimate goal of publishing a brief book on the subject. About three years ago, before I switched to an all digital workflow, I shot slides of about a dozen signs. Now I’m going back to get images of those in digital format and then expand the collection to include one or two dozen others.

The problem is that beyond the obvious candidates, there are many signs I forget about because I don’t see them very often or that I’m not aware even exist. That’s where YOU come in! I need your help in locating the best examples of vintage (and modern) neon signs so that I can add them to my list. If your suggestion makes it into the project, I’ll give you credit in the book!

Here’s the signs I’m already planning on shooting followed by examples of shots I’ve already taken.

The List So Far:

1. The Capitol Hill Motel

2. The 6th Avenue Motel

3. The Palms Motel

4. Portland Outdoor Store

5. Renner’s Bar and Grill

6. The Baghdad Theater

7. The Laurelhurst Theater

8. The Moreland Theater

9. The Academy Theater

10. The “Made in Oregon” sign (before and after the renovation?)

 

Examples:

My Top Albums of 2008

Tags:best of 2008, black mountain, girl talk, gutter twins, madvillain, Music, steinski, supergrass, the sword, venetian snares, wynton marsalis.

Maybe I didn’t get exposed to enough great stuff this year, but it seemed like ‘08 was pretty devoid of obviously classic material. It seemed pretty dull top to bottom. That said, here’s the albums I thought stood out, in alphabetical order.

Black Mountain – In the Future

These guys fall into the Stoner Rock category. Though they exhibit the usual Black Sabbath influences, they also draw pretty heavily from more progressive sources like Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, Yes and others. This is their most accomplished disc to date and I think it goes a long way toward transcending the Stoner Rock genre.

Girl Talk – Feed the Animals

When it comes to mash-ups, Girl Talk is really pushing the boundaries. This whole album is composed of pieces of dozens of other songs. The individual tracks are very listenable and there’s an element of detective work as you pick out the riffs and break beats that you know.

The Gutter Twins – Saturnalia

Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan teamed up for this project and the results are far better than I expected it to be. You know how some albums end with an epoch song that sends the whole thing out on an apocalyptic high note? Every song on this album sounds like that.

Madvillain – Madvillainy 2: The Madlib Remix

MF Doom is easily my favorite “underground” hip-hop artist. His flows are unreal. He’s such a master of wordplay that I have to really devote all my attention to his songs when I listen to them. This is Madlib’s remix of the Madvillainy album and it’s fantastic. Madlib’s breakbeats and samples give the songs an entirely different, but equally excellent feel from the originals.

Wynton Marsalis – Standards & Ballads

Wynton takes a lot more shit than he deserves. It’s mainly because Miles Davis dissed him as being too unimaginative, but I think that had more to do with Miles’ ego than it did with Marsalis’ playing. Personally, I love what Marsalis does with his horn and his style is really showcased on this collection of Jazz standards.

Steinski - What Does It All Mean?

If you know anything about the history of hip-hop you know about Steinsky. This guy single handedly pioneered the art of sampling and break beat mixing. For decades his recordings have been available as bootlegs only because of rights issues over the samples. Now the “lessons” are available on a semi-official CD release. Awesome stuff.

Supergrass – Diamond Hoo Ha

Admittedly, this is far from Supergrass’ best album, but it is better than the last one and has a lot of tracks that I really love. In a better music year this probably wouldn’t have made my list, but don’t let that color your opinion. It’s well worth checking out.

The Sword – Gods of the Earth

On the one hand The Sword is kind of a joke, which is to say that they’re joking around when they go into the histrionics that typify their sound. On the other hand they’re incredibly accomplished musicians and the tracks on this album are some of the best modern metal you can hear. It’s their second album and I think their sound is really starting to come together. I like this one even more than their debut.

Venetian Snares – Detrimentalist

More crazy, CRAZY electronica from Venetian Snares. It’s kind of an acquired taste and most people probably won’t be able to make it through the album in one sitting because it’s so frantic and difficult to take at times, but if you can get with the approach and absorb the plethora of musical ideas he presents on this (and his other) disc(s) you’ll find a lot of rewarding stuff.