From Tic-Toc to Hummmmmm

I used to get my watches at Wal-Mart; then they stopped making the kind I like.Now I wear a very similar style from KMart (link). Perhaps folks who prefer digital are also more likely to just rely on their cell phone (shudder).But analog is definitely the way to go. I typically judge how early or late I am for something just by glancing at the relative positioning of the hands with no reference to the actual numbers themselves.It'd be a pain to have to always read the numbers.

Ain't nobody got time for dat!Must be quite a chore to hold them eyelids open.

To you they are just watches. But to your great-great-grandson they are both family and historical treasures of art worthy of the preservation of their original materials and workmanship.And to his great-great-grandson this precious treasure will be loaned to museums around the world for their displays of ancient technology, fashion and art.Well, they would have been, except back in the early 2000's someone thought they were "just watches" and refurbished all the original materials and workmanship away.[Are you feeling guilty, yet?]

George Washington's axe.The fountain pen in the OP is a similar case. It too is from the early 40s and when the cork seal on the pistone needed replacement it got serviced.

The young boy was smarter than the curator to the curator’s shame. Your great-great-ever-so-great-grandson shouldn’t have to suffer the same embarrassment, should he? At his great-great-ever-so-great grandfather’s hand? Naw, of course not!
Ol’ GGESGGramps wouldn’t do such a thing would he, not to his own kin, his own flesh and blood, his own future posterity.Oh ... and leave him the pen, too.

Well, ifin he's been raised properly he will be able to distinguish between what is really valuable and what is not.Watches and pens are just things, tools to be used. Ideas and memories though last and have value.

You are so correct. And when the two combine as in a most wonderful collection of early 20th century watches it is a crime against posterity to not preserve the significance of their utility, their remembrance of the past in their materials and workmanship and the artists’ conceptions of beauty and elegance.That is not your stomach rumbling because of hunger, jar. That is posterity calling to you.

Wait.. people still wear watches!?

I have some of my father's tools and I know he would want me to wear them out using them and to replace any parts that needed replacing. He'd be disappointed in me if I kept them on a shelf to be admired. He wouldn't have left them to me if he thought I wouldn't appreciate them by using them.My grandfather would have laughed at the idea of a tool in a display case instead of a toolbox. My great-grandfather probably would have called it a sin.

Your father, grandfather and great-grandfather were right. But I would venture to say that all three of them could discern and appreciate the difference between a ball-peen and a Ming Vase. Both, after all, are tools, but to most people there is a wee bit of a difference in the esthetic qualities of the two. While jar's watches are somewhat distant in esthetics from a Ming Vase they are certainly quite distant in esthetics from a ball-peen.I look with sympathy and sorrow upon those so misfortunate of eye and heart that the reflections of beauty fail to enter the darkened esthetic recesses of their utilitarian-centered minds. With some people it cannot be helped. All their taste is in their mouths. (snoot, snoot)Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

I'm sure all three of them would pay more for a hammer than a vase. So would I. A tool you use to make your living surpasses mere "beauty".Unfortunately, in this day and age when people make their livings on throw-away computers, the aesthetics of real life are diluted.

I did not suggest they or you would do otherwise, did I.

quote:

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... could discern and appreciate the difference ... a difference in the esthetic qualities of the two

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How my message got from "appreciate the esthetics of a Ming vase" to "pay more for a hammer than a vase" I cannot follow. It's not like my reference was to making any purchase at all let alone some $3 plastic bud vase from the discount bin at wal-mart, was it. I have no idea what this has to do with my entreaties to jar.Edited by AZPaul3, : tense

I know I'm often too subtle. I was disagreeing with you. I and my plebian relatives consider a hammer more aesthetically pleasing than a Ming vase.

Suppose it was a vase from Ming the Merciless?

I don't think any of my ancestors would have heard of him. I'd be interested in seeing it but I'd still rather have the hammer (not that I need another hammer).