Often you hear, that the watch virus was passed on from father to son.
Not so in my case. My father was always wearing cheap department-storesque quartz watches.
Actually I purchased the last one he wore, as my mother – I must have been around 20 this time – asked me to buy him a watch as a birthday gift on her behalf. (It now seems to me, that I was kind of a watch guy by then already, although I was only wearing cheap fun watches.)
Again, the budget was just enough for something quite boring.
But last year my mothers watch broke down and until I got her a new one, she said “Maybe this old thing here still works?!” and got this this Vintage ZentRa watch out of the drawer.
This watch is with my father since more than 75 years, but I never saw him wearing it.

In 1945 the French army liberated the part of southern Germany where my parents lived as children.
It was the first time they saw dark skinned people in real life and some time later they also realised, that English soldiers actually do NOT have a bears head on their shoulders – contrary to what the Nazi propaganda told them …
Challenging times for little kids.

At that time, one day the french soldiers played football (soccer) in front of my dads house. Probably to protect the Vintage ZentRa watch, or maybe it was hot this day, one soldier put off his watch and laid it down onto the wall.

My father, 11 years at the time, did secretly put a leaf over it. So later, when the soldier had to go, he forgot the watch …

I don’t know much about what happened between then and last year, but what I can tell you: I did wind the Vintage ZentRa watch up and it ran and worked fine for a couple of weeks until I got my mum a new watch.
I mean this watch saw at least some months of war and was in a drawer for many, many years.

But of course both the sliver case and even more the movement needed an overhaul.
So I gave it into the hands of Robin Israel – @uhrenkunde – who has his workshop not far away from Frankfurt in a very nice little town in Rheinhessen, an area I lived many years, too.
He did a great job on the quite rare AS 554, which is labelled ZentRa, a company which started as the “Central association of German watchmakers”, competing with the cooperative Dugena.
ZentRa was not a watch manufacturer, but did buy movements, which contractors did fit into cases and the complete watches then were just labelled with their brand name.
My watch must have been one of the early days of ZentRa (which was founded 1924), presumably it was several years old already, before my dad “found” it.
According to Robin Israel, the watch probably has it’s 100th birthday in about eight years.
So naturally Robin Israel had a lot to do.
Amongst many other things, the pinion of the third wheel had to be replaced, but as only the spare of a sister calibre was available, this had to be adapted.

The greatest effort was made on the escapement, here the sapphire pallets had shrunk and the old escapement had to be replaced. However, the matching replacement part did not quite fit (pre-industrial standard) and the entire escapement area had to be readjusted.
The mainspring was also replaced, but it was only half a hundredth thinner than the original. As a result, the amplitude is somewhat lower than would be desirable, but this does not affect everyday operation.

But eventually the Vintage ZentRa was ready for wearing. I got it a matching perlon strap (16mm!) and promise to myself to wear it from time to time. In the end I always wanted a watch with a sliver case, now I do own one!