Jay Fleishman’s fascination with timepieces started when he was about ten years old, with a Westclox Scotty watch inherited from his grandmother, Rose.
He was immediately captivated. Eventually, his curiosity got the better of him, and he opened the back to see what was happening inside.
“I was fascinated by the way it worked. It just mesmerized me.”
Soon he was opening other watches. The first was a broken wristwatch he got from another kid in elementary school. He took it apart, fascinated by the tiny gears, intricate movements, and mechanics inside.
As he got older, Jay began searching swap meets for old Hamiltons and Elgins. At the time, they were inexpensive and plentiful. Armed with a screwdriver set and a magnifying glass, he taught himself how they worked by carefully taking them apart and attempting to rebuild them.
Eventually, he learned there was a specific order to how a movement had to come apart and go back together. Through repetition and trial and error, the watches he rebuilt started running again. Jay bought nearly every interesting one he encountered and still owns many of the first 20 or 30 watches he collected.
Then, at a swap meet in the mid-1980s, he found something different: a Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos. Jay knew Jaeger-LeCoultre from watches and knew the quality of the name, but he had never encountered an Atmos before. He bought the Tuxedo model and brought it to a local specialist to learn more about it and have it repaired.
The specialist kept the clock for several years but was never able to get it running. Jay credits that experience with getting him into Atmos clocks in the first place. Having already taught himself to work on watches, he decided to take the same approach with the Atmos.
He removed the case and dial, studied what went where, and began figuring out how the movement worked. At first, he couldn’t get it back together. Then he could get it back together, but couldn’t make it run.
So he kept going.
There was no formal training. A grainy VHS repair tape and a couple of books offered some guidance, but most of the education came through repetition and trial and error. Jay learned how to clean the movements properly, how to disassemble and rebuild them, how to replace and adjust a suspension spring thinner than a human hair, and how to regulate the weights of the pendulum to change the clock’s timing.
Then he started buying Atmos clocks at swap meets just as he had once bought watches.
More than four decades later, Jay estimates that over 4,000 Atmos clocks have passed through his hands.
“I could do these with my eyes closed. I literally can.”
But Collectible Time didn’t begin because Jay decided to start an Atmos repair business. He learned to repair them because he wanted them for himself.
One of the earliest he bought — a chrome Atmos II from the 1940s — remains in his collection today and is still one of the pieces closest to him.
That attachment also explains the philosophy behind his work. It is common for people to dismantle old Atmos clocks and sell the hands, dials, movements and other components individually. Jay has always approached them differently.
“My main focus is bringing these things back to life.”
If there is a way to save an Atmos, Jay would rather find it than part the clock out. After thousands of clocks, that remains the reason he does the work.
“I am so grateful that I can make a living doing what I love.”