For our purposes a timepiece has two lives. The original service life followed by life as an artifact/collector’s item.

1911:

Let’s take a 0 size Waltham movement made in, say, 1911. The movement is placed into a silver case by a jeweler for use by a woman as a pendant watch - the service life of the watch has started.

A few years have gone buy. It’s 1917, the woman wants her husband to have a fashionable wristwatch for use in his service in WWI, so she has her watch altered by the watchmaker with wire lugs and luminous Swiss hands added. She even buys a grill to fit over the crystal because life can be hard in the trenches.

Given that the above hypothetical takes place during the "service life" of the watch, the alterations of 1917 are original as far as I’m concerned, maybe not as valuable as a factory made wire lug case, but an original item.


Fast Forward to 2005- A Cigar Box from a Rummage Sale:

Take the above hypothetical 1911 Waltham as transformed into a trench-watch in 1917 and bring it forward to today. The watch is found in a cigar box with some WWI buttons, a 1933 VFW badge is in the box with the name of a veteran of the 69th Div., some worthless pencils and other stuff are also in the box with the watch. The wire lugs on the watch case are broken off, the dial has cracks. The case back hinge is broken, but the case back is still on. The luminous hour hand is still there but the other hands are gone. The movement is in good shape but dirty. The crystal guard is also found in the cigar box. No diary is present so we don’t know about the woman who had her watch altered in 1917, all we know now is what we can guess from the contents of the old cigar box.

Assume you have skill and lots of other old parts and cases for 0 size wire-lug watches. Now, what use or uses would be ok as far as the watch, crystal guard and other stuff in the cigar box?

Here are some thoughts off the top of my head from the point of view of a historian, collector of things, and watch repair student (NOT a watch collector):
Given the scenario you've outlined so far, and assuming the items are being sold by the family of the veteran, the BEST case would be that the person selling the items would say, "My grandfather was in World War I, and this is his watch. I think he was also in the VFW afterward." I would then ask his specific unit, etc., and I'd ask what VFW post he was a member of, or in what town. You can do research about the gentleman from that angle, too.
So, I'd figure that the watch and pins go together (without concrete proof, of course). I would definitely clean the watch. I think it would be permissible to remount the grill, but I'm not sure what I'd do about the wire lugs. I would be tempted to leave the lugs off and forget about adding any hands; just clean it up, fix the hinge, remount the grill, try to get it running, and display it with the buttons and pins and with any info gathered about the gentleman.
Any other thoughts?
Pete
PS: Hey, that was my 100th post!!!

Congrats on your 100th post, Pete.

For this hypothetical, we don't know anything about family. Assume it was sold at a big church rumage sale, $10.00 for the box and contents. You checked, and no one had any idea who donated it for the sale.

The local VFW post is a good idea for information.

Thanks Greg,
In that case (no one has knowledge of the vet, etc.), I could not comfortably assume that the pins and buttons were associated with the watch, nor that any of the contents of the box had any association with any other contents. In that case, I might be tempted to do a bit more restoration on the watch -- ie, attach lugs and hands and maybe even a period wristband. I would probably still do some research on the vet (you have his name and 69th Division), but not necessarily with the expectation that I could ever tie the watch in with the man, unless you could somehow trace a son/daugher who might remember that he had that particular watch, etc. I think that if you had proper, period lugs, hands, and wristband, it would be proper to restore, considering that it is a WWI watch, so long as it is identified as having been restored. But, I'm not an expert in that field, so I am open to hearing other thoughts.
Pete
PS: As I re-read my post, I find that, in my initial reactions I have made a distinction in the disposition of the watch: If I know the name of the man and that he used the watch in WWI, I would minimize restoration using parts original to the watch (or altered pendant watch) whereas if I didn't know who used it, I'd restore using period parts. I'm not sure why I make that distinction....

If it all looked like it went together, I suppose keeping it together as a kit would not be too far of a stretch.

On the other hand, it would be as acceptable, to me, to part-out the entire lot. Not what I would do, but I would not knock anyone who did.

If the watch has enough eye appeal to keep in my collection, I would fix it up with new lugs and keep the crystal guard on it. Such a restoration, would not go so far as to make the watch look new but to make it look well used and acceptable in a functional sort of way.

Thus, under the circumstances, I think the owner of such a box could do various things with it -most of which would be acceptable.

Greg