Bob Schulte, our February featured speaker, gave a wonderful talk about clock collecting in E. Berlin. His adventures sound as if part of a spy film. Bob was in the military in W. Germany and gave detail about the excursions over the Wall to East Germany. He had to go through many check points with each "I" dotted and each "T" crossed to make it back and forth, even having to split up with his wife and meet her on the other side, as she could not go through the final check point. Then they would hunt for the treasure. Sometimes the treasure was at a dealer and sometimes in dark upstairs apartments. It was illegal for an individual to sell to Americans, so Bob had to hide if there was a knock on the door. In one such instance, we were left wondering who "The Fat Man" was. When asked if it was worth the effort, the answer was obviously, yes. And 'why' you ask, would one go to all that trouble? The answer was "money". The buying power was fabulous, possibly 3 or 4 clocks in E. Germany, for the price of 1 in W. Germany. After the Wall came down the prices evened out and the adventure was over.
The Watch Focus Group's subject was Decorated Watches. The members filled the display with examples of fancy dials and multi-color gold inlay cases. Valdameir Farber, one of our guests, displayed an interesting watch. It was a hunting-case grade 70 B.W. Raymond containing a semi-opaque lady's photograph printed directly onto its crystal. The Watch Focus Group's subject for the April meeting will be Ladies' Size Watches.