Smooth Vintage Pocket Watch with Chain, Arabic Numerals Scale Mens Watch Christmas Graduation Birthday Gifts Fathers Day

I've gotten into watchmaking as a hobby. It's fun, educational and useful. I've managed to put a number of my older watches back into service, improved how many of them keep time and surprisingly, managed to return many of them to looking better than they ever did. But recently my wife fell in love with a very inexpensive eBay buy of a smaller vintage pocket watch. The seller stated it ran inconsistently, consequently the low price. This was a no-name, European-origin timepiece that didn't even have a maker's name on the movement. The only jewels were on the balance, and most of the pivots showed a good deal of wear due to never being serviced and frankly, old age. But in its favor the case is heavy, solid metal, probably brass-alloy of some kind, that gives it a nice patina with a vintage look. The dial face is real porcelain-over-copper, with beautiful scrolled hands that look like vines. It's a fine looking little watch and my wife was really looking forward to wearing it. First though it needed servicing to get it running consistently. That's where the problems started. First though it needed a new main spring, which had to come from England. Then when the parts came out of the watch cleaning process I found the main plate had a minuscule crack that allowed the plate to distort, and to add to that the hairspring on the balance was so thin and rusty that when trying to reinstall the balance the spring snapped. There's no way to find the needed parts. My wife was so disappointed. Then it occurred to me that the size of this watch appeared to be very close to a lot of the inexpensive quartz-based pocket watches that have been selling to a lot of people looking for cheap, sometimes costume like affects, but don't want the hassle of keeping the watch wound and serviced (think "steampunk"). Enter the "LYMFHCH Classic Smooth Vintage Quartz Pocket Watch." First it has a quartz movement that I knew for the price would be small and probably mounted in some kind of plastic framework (so if necessary I could trim it). Second, being quartz it doesn't need to be wound. Trying to transplant a movement between cases isn't easy if you want to be able to set the time with the stem-and-crown it comes with. Third, from the measurements it was extremely close to being just the right size. Fourth, as an experiment, the price of this watch was perfect. You can't even buy used quartz movements for as cheap as this one goes for. Well, when it arrived frankly I didn't expect much. I was wrong and very pleased. The watch case is smooth, and every part of it fits together in a way that makes it look complete and well-designed. Is it "Cartier" or "Omega" level? No way, but in its simple lines and good execution, it's handsome and feels good in the hand. Of course it feels lightweight, but if you open the caseback like you were going to replace the battery, you'll find the quartz movement is that of a small, ladies' wristwatch. Does this matter? No, not in the least. You only see the dial of the movement with the watch closed, and that dial is enameled metal! Not paper over cardboard, which I rather expected for the price. The dial face has a somewhat generic-look to it with nicely designed Arabic hour indices and nice little seconds indices in between the hours. The only printed word on the dial face is "Quartz," which I would have preferred was left off, but it's small and unobjectionable. There's 3 hands: Hours, minutes and seconds. The hour and minute hands are done in a scroll-like vintage-manner, not unlike how the hands were done on my wife's pocket watch of about 100-years-ago. I'm not enamored with the large chain and anchoring clip included with the watch, but it matches the watch case perfectly in color and it's easy to take off the watch if you don't want to use it. It probably is well-liked by those that are looking of that period-look (mock-period-look?). Regardless, for the price I don't think you can beat this watch if you're looking for a nicely turned, inexpensive-to-buy pocket watch. Now, how did it work out for my idea to replace the ruined movement in my wife's new-old pocket watch? Unbelievably, it works perfectly! I was able to line the case with a neoprene o-ring that holds the plastic frame of the new quartz movement in just the right position. A second smaller o-ring fits inside the front of the case to cushion the dial face just right from the crystal, and a third small o-ring cushions the rear of the movement against the inner caseback of the watch (pocket watches usually have an inner caseback and an outer caseback). I simply can't believe how well this movement fits the watch's case and how nice it all looks together! The only difficulty was the stem needed to be lengthened about 1.5mm so that the crown could reach the movement for proper use. That was an easy thing to do using a stem-extender from my supply of stems and parts. So why such a long review? Well, for what this simple, inexpensive pocket watch is, for me it checks all of the boxes. It saved my wife's beautiful vintage pocket watch. It keeps excellent time (better than my expensive auto-wind Seikos!). And I find this rather surprising: My wife likes the conversion, but she said she misses the loud ticking that pocket watches usually do, and the quartz does "tick", but so lightly you can't hardly hear it. So, I've ordered a new manual wind Chinese-manufactured movement to build into her watch for that "tick-tock" sound, and I'll put the quartz movement back into the LYMFHCH case and wear the watch myself! Yes, I think it looks that good. How will it hold up? I have no idea, but if it's like any of my other quartz movements (many no-name) it will probably still be running decades from now as long as I don't let a leaky battery destroy it. Oh, one last thing, when you open the caseback to change the battery, look around the edge of the caseback for a little square notch that you can use to pry the back off. I looked, but because I ordered the watch in black I missed finding the notch until I nicked the case edge getting it off. My bad! I'm still going to enjoy this little gem.

Very good value for money! I bought it as a gift so I’m not sure how durable it is, but he hasn’t mentioned if there’s been any problems with it. It has an elegant look, lightweight, and easy to set the time!

It works and it's cheap. Bought it for a costume and it will be perfect. Then I'll let my kids play with it. It serves its purpose as a working costume prop, but feels "cheap" The top button feels like it's going to break when opening the watch. The crystal (plastic) fell out the first time I opened the watch, but I popped it back in. The bottom hinge doesn't allow the watch to open up more than 70 degrees, so you have to read the time at an angle. That's the reason it lost a star; even as a costume prop, it looks awkward reading a watch that's not open at least 90 degrees. The main picture on the listing is impossible. They would have had to photoshop the picture or physically break the hinge in order to show the face of the watch vertically.

Got for my grandson for Christmas the only thing he wanted. He loves it, wears it every Sunday to church. It is so shiny and pretty. It is a great gift for a 10 year old.

Was looking for a pocketwatch for my dad with big numbers he could read without his reading glasses. This works. It's not as cheaply made as I was expecting for the price. Of course it's not swiss watch quality which is apparent if you look up close (with reading glasses :P), but the door opens and closes okay, the hand go around and it keeps time, and the knob, although a big vague and loose, was possible to use to set it. And if you don't look too close, it actually looks much more expensive than it is. No idea how long the battery will last, or how you get in there to replace it. After seeing it, I probably wouldn't pay more than $15 or $20 max for it, but for $9, seemed like a great deal. If it dies in less than a year, I'll just buy him another one.

Received watch in box broken on all four sides with no instructions om how to operate watch returned next day

I ordered this item on July 17 & received it on July 29, well ahead of the estimated delivery date. It was well-protected in packaging & arrived in perfect condition. The piece I received looks exactly like the picture. With a 1 & 1/2 inch diameter, it is a nice mid-size for a watch (some I've ordered are way too small & some are rather large/bulky), & it is very detailed. In fact, every part of this watch has lovely details - from the front & back of the case, to the edges of the case to the top that attaches to the chain. It definitely looks like a vintage piece. It was running when it arrived & it was easy to set to my correct local time. The numbers & hands are large enough to see easily & they are in an attractive style. I like the way it feels when I touch it & open it. I really like the long chain. It hangs nicely. I am pleasantly surprised at the quality & sturdiness of the piece for such a reasonable price. It will go with anything, so I know I'll be wearing it alot! I would definitely order from this seller again.

Gets off time very often but I bought it for cosmetic purposes so I don't really care

Bought as a theatre prop was perfect

I didn’t know there was a writing on the back

It's worth the money I spent.

I bought this for a wedding gift and it was the perfect size!

works well, looks good and is of great quality