GEARS - Watches and Derailleurs

One of the First Tulio Campagnolo is generally credited with inventing the first parallelogram derailleur. While there is strong evidence he was beaten to the punch by others, there can be no argument that Tulio and his company ushered in the era of the modern derailleur with the 1949 introduction of the Campagnolo Gran Sport.  And even if a derailleur by a German company, Nivex, did predate the Gran Sport, this derailleur mounted to the frames chainstay in contrast to the Campagnolo, which like almost all modern derailleurs thereafter, mounted to the rear dropout.   To this day almost all derailleurs utilize the parallelogram design and Campagnolo is still the world's premier bicycle component manufacturer. To be clear, there were other gear changers and derailleurs before the Gran Sport, such as the plunger-type, and I will discuss some of these in future posts. My personal pre-Gran Sport favorite is another Campagnolo product, the death defying Campagnolo ...

Patria Trench Watch For the first featured watch, it only makes sense to discuss one of the first trench watches I purchased (or should I say the father of my collection), my Patria.   There are a lot of misconceptions about the Patria brand many (especially on ebay) equating it with the storied Omega brand perhaps to generate the highest possible auction price for their Patria wares.   Let me cut to the chase - a Patria Trench Watch is a very good watch with a quality movement but it is not an Omega.    Some may disagree with me and I am open and desirous of hearing their reasoning, but having done a bit of internet sleuthing on this topic, I am reasonably confident in my conclusion.   I bought this watch off of ebay several years ago.   It was in partially functioning condition meaning it would tick occasionally but not regularly and reliably.   The 33mm case had a heavy patina, the dial was dirty because of flaking old lume, ...

At lot of people collect watches especially vintage watches, but almost no one collects derailleurs.  I suspect some of you reading this post for the first time having come here for the watch component of my collecting endeavors did even realize what a derailleur the identifying photo popped up.  And some of you may note that the watches are not exactly what you expect in a wristwatch: I prefer early wristwatches that existed before the invention of the spring bar. Anyhow, enjoy!  Hopefully, you will see something new and learn something you didn't know before.  And by all means, if you have something to add about any watch or any derailleur, I'd love to learn as well.