Guns,guns, and more Guns

[Fergie 307]

No dice on the Waterbury. Just a mention on an alarm clock that the alarm is "the famous waterbury" type. It looks like American pocket watch makers were too well organized by then and that's mostly what's in the catalog.

Thanks for looking anyway.

 

[Fergie 307]

No dice on the Waterbury. Just a mention on an alarm clock that the alarm is "the famous waterbury" type. It looks like American pocket watch makers were too well organized by then and that's mostly what's in the catalog.

Waterbury are probably one of the least known of the American watch manufacturers, even though in the 1880's they were arguably the biggest watch maker in the world, in terms of numbers produced at any rate. Made their name selling cheap watches for the average Joe, at around $2.50 when the cheapest alternatives were four or five times that price. They sold millions of them all over the world in the 1870's through to the 1890's and became a household name. Got into financial difficulties by the end of the century, and eventually became part of Ingersoll, and later absorbed into Timex. I collect American pocket watches, so have quite a few examples of Egin, Waltham and Hamilton. The Waterburys are still my favourites though. Very clever design of the movement, only forty or so components in the original ones, versus over a hundred in a conventional watch of the time. Unfortunately for me good ones now fetch rather more than $2.50 !

 

[D_W]

Ahhh...I have had only two pocket watches, both Hamilton. It's possible that wards had a house brand case and put Hamilton's in them as there are a few cheap watches in that range in the catalog.

 

[Spectric]

Every act of HER government.

Is that why a new PM has to go and see her, to have the strings attached like a puppet from Thunderbirds!! That could explain some of bumbling Borris's antics.

 

[Spectric]

Do you actually believe that every bill enacted since then was at the monarch's pleasure? They agreed with every single one? It's ceremonial.

Spot on, she is just a figure head in a circus that only has any power in theory, again historical drama like that idiot who insist on damaging a very nice solid door in parliament with a stick, just vandalism. Actually can you call someone "black rod" these days, could be thought of as racist pornography.

 

[D_W]

Waterbury are probably one of the least known of the American watch manufacturers, even though in the 1880's they were arguably the biggest watch maker in the world, in terms of numbers produced at any rate. Made their name selling cheap watches for the average Joe, at around $2.50 when the cheapest alternatives were four or five times that price. They sold millions of them all over the world in the 1870's through to the 1890's and became a household name. Got into financial difficulties by the end of the century, and eventually became part of Ingersoll, and later absorbed into Timex. I collect American pocket watches, so have quite a few examples of Egin, Waltham and Hamilton. The Waterburys are still my favourites though. Very clever design of the movement, only forty or so components in the original ones, versus over a hundred in a conventional watch of the time. Unfortunately for me good ones now fetch rather more than $2.50 !

OK, I looked closer - there is a section of pocket watches in the catalog - long, maybe 100 different options, and within some of those, separate case metal and movement options. In those is an option for "montgomery ward's special movement", but most of the watches aren't cheap.

However, I did find in a totally different section - with the alarm clocks, and nowhere close to the pocket watches - a single solitary pocket watch with budget clocks - the "short stemwind waterbury" for $1.35.

"Can be carried as a pocket watch or hung on the wall".

In the main watch section, the cheapest adult watch is $4.10 (that I can see, though there's so many, I could've missed one) and in "bargains" under the watch section, there is a "boy's pocket watch" with a nickel plated case for $3.00...

...check that, there is a 7 jewel montgomery ward branded watch for $3.65.

That would've been about a skilled day's wage at the time for a journeyman.

The way they stuffed the waterbury watch in another section almost suggests they were afraid if they didn't, too many people would order it. Waltham, Elgin and Hampden are listed as the branded movements on the higher cost watches (a 17 jewel movement in a lower cost case is about $20 in the catalog, an a solid gold watch just over $112).

Interestingly, watches and quality rifles are about the same price, with the highest grade double rifles about the same as the gold watch or slightly more.

 

[Fergie 307]

They did make the original dollar watch, a fairly crude thing with only an hour hand, very rare now. Probably their most famous watches were the long wind series C and E. They had a turbillion movement that revolves inside the case once an hour. Called long winders as they have a main spring nine feet long, and took about 150 turns of the crown to fully wind up. To put that in perspective a conventional watch the same size has a spring about 22 inches long. I think prices for these went as low as $1.50 in some cases, and they were even included as a free gift to promote some products by the big mail order companies of the day. A working series E will cost you $500+ today, and quite a lot more for a really good one.

 

[Vann]

Works for a knife, golf club or bare hands just the same.

Oh no it doesn't. You have to go home to get the golf club. Unless you're really good with a knife you'll miss or fail to deliver a fatal stab at more than about 10 yards. And it's really hard to do with bare hands unless you're highly trained (and the intended victim isn't too much bigger than you).

So, NO, it doesn't work just the same.

Cheers, Vann.

 

[Suffolkboy]

Oh no it doesn't. You have to go home to get the golf club. Unless you're really good with a knife you'll miss or fail to deliver a fatal stab at more than about 10 yards. And it's really hard to do with bare hands unless you're highly trained (and the intended victim isn't too much bigger than you).

So, NO, it doesn't work just the same.

Cheers, Vann.

I had the opportunity to visit a police firearms training establishment a few years ago where among other things we were shown videos of police engagements to try to illustrate how quickly armed response officers have to make their decisions based on what they see before them.

The videos were from real incidents from various parts of the world and will stick with me forever. Utterly chilling. Believe me. This sentence is just not true.

"Unless you're really good with a knife you'll miss or fail to deliver a fatal stab at more than about 10 yards. And it's really hard to do with bare hands unless you're highly trained (and the intended victim isn't too much bigger than you)."

I am reminded of a particular incident where a suspect is 10-15 yds from an armed police officer in america. The suspect is armed only with a knife, and the officer the usual pistol etc.

The video is filmed from the officers partner's bodycam who has a pistol drawn.

The suspect advances on the officer and delivers a fatal wound before the officer can draw his pistol, or his partner, who has already drawn can get a shot off. The suspect turns on the second officer, (with the pistol already drawn), covers a good 20-30yds while the officer fires 6-8 times (maybe more) and stops the suspect only two or three feet from himself.

I guess my point is not to underestimate a person, trained or otherwise who is holding a knife and don't overestimate the capabilities of a gun.

 

[Droogs]

@Vann Now, that sounds like the voice of experience speaking

 

[artie]

Oh no it doesn't. You have to go home to get the golf club. Unless you're really good with a knife you'll miss or fail to deliver a fatal stab at more than about 10 yards. And it's really hard to do with bare hands unless you're highly trained (and the intended victim isn't too much bigger than you).

So, NO, it doesn't work just the same.

Cheers, Vann.

My post " Works for a knife, golf club or bare hands just the same. "
was in reply to yours quoted below.
It's perfectly true.
You may not like it.
But You might have to go home for a gun.
Unless you have experience with a gun you could miss at ten yards.
And it's really hard to use a gun to shoot someone unless you've been trained.

Vann said:
And if you give them ready access to guns they can do it quickly and efficiently while they're still angry - before they've had a chance to cool down and think about it.

 

[selectortone]

My post " Works for a knife, golf club or bare hands just the same. "
was in reply to yours quoted below.
It's perfectly true.
You may not like it.
But You might have to go home for a gun.
Unless you have experience with a gun you could miss at ten yards.
And it's really hard to use a gun to shoot someone unless you've been trained.

Vann said:
And if you give them ready access to guns they can do it quickly and efficiently while they're still angry - before they've had a chance to cool down and think about it.

OK Artie, you take the golf club, I'll take the revolver. Let's see who comes out on top.

 

[sploo]

According to Wikipedia, a "Mass Shooting" is variously defined as being a minimum of three or four deaths (or sometimes five).

So... how many times has such a death toll occurred when someone entered a school, workplace, shopping centre, or other busy area armed with a golf club, knife, or bare hands? I'll concede it'll almost certainly be a figure greater than zero, but definitely dwarfed by the number of mass shootings.

Point being; yes, you can kill people with just about anything, but there are few more effective ways to harm a large number of people in a short period of time than carrying a firearm.

 

[artie]

OK Artie, you take the golf club, I'll take the revolver. Let's see who comes out on top.

That's not what it was about.

 

[artie]

According to Wikipedia, a "Mass Shooting" is variously defined as being a minimum of three or four deaths (or sometimes five).

So... how many times has such a death toll occurred when someone entered a school, workplace, shopping centre, or other busy area armed with a golf club, knife, or bare hands? I'll concede it'll almost certainly be a figure greater than zero, but definitely dwarfed by the number of mass shootings.

Point being; yes, you can kill people with just about anything, but there are few more effective ways to harm a large number of people in a short period of time than carrying a firearm.

Absolutely.
I haven't checked but I would think the number of firearm deaths due to mass shootings is way smaller than the total number, even though they get vastly more air time.
It's quite difficult to keep up when making a point in reply to what someone says.
Then somebody else takes that reply and applies it to something else.

 

[selectortone]

That's not what it was about.

.

 

[RobinBHM]

288 people have died THIS year from gun violence in America.

 

[D_W]

about 349.999999 million didn't.

I wonder how many kids were neglected because their parents were busy arguing about school shootings using terms like "they'll be likely", climate change or religion.

 

[Noel]

288 people have died THIS year from gun violence in America.

Saw some stats the other day:

In the first 48 hours of the new year, America has seen:

•85 gun deaths
•206 gun injuries
•9 mass shootings
•4 children shot
•21 teenagers shot
•4 incidents of defensive use
•6 unintentional shootings

There were 7 mass shootings on New Year’s day.

2021 stats


20,658 gun deaths
•40,358 gun injuries
•691 mass shootings
•1,055 children (age 0-11) shot
•4,585 teenagers (age 12-17) shot
•1,236 incidents of defensive use
•1,988 unintentional shootings
~24,090 suicides [CDC estimate]

Line 4, 1.000 babies and kids???

 

[Droogs]

That's just depressing