Mechanical watches are great! For all reasons other than being able to tell time! The fact that they occasionally show the current time is merely a side effect.
I have previously praised mechanical watches, but for a different reason and for a different watch. That one stopped after just over a month of operation, clearly caused by the visible ball of dust inside the watch movement jamming up the gears. That was rather short lived, but also short enough to be within warranty. Not deterred, I returned it and got another pocket watch.
I deduced all the dust must have entered the previous watch via the opening that the lid hooks onto, so I got an open-face watch that does not come with that hole. I have not seen dust accumulating inside the new watch after one month of use, so that seemed to be a good choice. The lack of a lid also makes the ticking sound even louder, which I happen to like (though my brother claimed that it sounds like those time bombs in movies). And it's cheaper than the old watch. It's all great!
Except, it doesn't really tell the time. This watch is accurate to the minute but not accurate to the hour. Initially I thought the hour hand was simply not aligned, perhaps the watch face were intended for a different orientation. But after further observation, it seemed that the hour hand simply moves at a random rate. On some days, it will actually be kind of correct all day, on other days it would be one hour ahead in the morning and one hour behind in the afternoon. The minute and second hands, however, always seemed to be accurate.
The random hour hand was discovered on the same week I got this watch, so well within warranty if I want to return it. Then I thought... I can roughly tell what hour it is, so not having an accurate hour was not a big loss. Plus it's the first time I own a device that displays a random hour, so suddenly it feels even more rare and valuable than before. I already carry several accurate timekeeping devices with me every day, did I buy this pocket watch in order to tell time? I returned the previous watch because the gears weren't turning anymore, but the gears are still turning in this one, so I decided to just keep it.
I still occasionally take out my pocket watch whenever my coworkers start playing with their expensive smart watches. And now it comes with extra entropy.
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