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What's The Longest Time You've Misplaced a Watch?

ConElPueblo
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This is my Certina DS 5601 113:

20220121_102414.jpg



It was the DS that sparked my interest in that particular line of watches and changed my collecting habits for good. It is in pretty good nick and has a bracelet in really great condition, something that is rather hard to find.

It has also been missing for about twenty months.

I must have spent days in total searching through all my belonging, two houses and a holiday cabin as well as my old office. I couldn't quite get to grips with the possibility that I could have lost it at work (during lockdown I went to my workplace only once), but as my initial theory of it lying on a shelf somewhere in my garage hadn't been proven during 2021, I was slowly getting to a point where I had mentally signed it off. Especially since the woman in charge of cleaning at my work pretty bluntly told me that they don't keep lost watches for a long time and they regularly throw some out. In December I took the step of buying a date version cousin (5801 113) to it to relive the romance...

Now I get to enjoy the pair of them 🥰

20220117_153445.jpg



Last week I rediscovered the 5601 during a trip abroad; it lay in an inner pocket on a laptop briefcase I very rarely use, but have searched at least two times since I realised the watch had gone missing. Go figure.

Do you have a similar experience?
 
Taddyangle
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Lol, this is so hilarious. And true. Although I have never misplaced one for such a period I had to buy a replacement, I have misplaced a couple of times for just a few weeks. Most recent was my Aqua Terra. It's was wrapped in a cloth, back in a cupboard.
PXL_20220115_211931912~2.jpg
 
Canuck
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I misplaced my 1933 Rolex Prince Observatory duo-dial doctor’s watch about 30 years ago. A number of us were visiting a local tower clock installation we were involved with. It meant clambering up a 30-foot steel step ladder. I took my watch off, and absentmindedly stashed it where it would be safe. The following, day, I was unable to recall where I had put it……….but I knew I had put it where it would be easily found! Ha! For about a year, I was on the lookout for the dam thing, to no avail. I had almost given up hope. One day, I was rummaging around in my camera gadget bag, looking for something. Voila! There was my Rolex.

348A3017-EEDB-4398-B698-7CDED0F1E745.jpeg
 
Alpha
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Many many years ago I won a watch on Swiss Radio International and not a clue where it is and not a single picture.
🤦
 
TheGreekPhysique
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Not a watch but my favorite brown leather belt. Wore it on my wedding day and has been missing about 16 months or so. Searched high and low. I’m hoping to find it in our family’s home in Greece but won’t know until we can get back out there again some day.
 
FREDMAYCOIN
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Still missing my James Bond SMP 300. Hope I recall were I placed it eventually. Ugh
 
cineaste
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ConElPueblo ConElPueblo
This is my Certina DS 5601 113:

20220121_102414.jpg



It was the DS that sparked my interest in that particular line of watches and changed my collecting habits for good. It is in pretty good nick and has a bracelet in really great condition, something that is rather hard to find.

It has also been missing for about twenty months.

I must have spent days in total searching through all my belonging, two houses and a holiday cabin as well as my old office. I couldn't quite get to grips with the possibility that I could have lost it at work (during lockdown I went to my workplace only once), but as my initial theory of it lying on a shelf somewhere in my garage hadn't been proven during 2021, I was slowly getting to a point where I had mentally signed it off. Especially since the woman in charge of cleaning at my work pretty bluntly told me that they don't keep lost watches for a long time and they regularly throw some out. In December I took the step of buying a date version cousin (5801 113) to it to relive the romance...

Now I get to enjoy the pair of them 🥰

20220117_153445.jpg



Last week I rediscovered the 5601 during a trip abroad; it lay in an inner pocket on a laptop briefcase I very rarely use, but have searched at least two times since I realised the watch had gone missing. Go figure.

Do you have a similar experience?
That must have been painful! Now you can sell one of them to me 😜
 
Tet
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Well my dad misplaced this one for over 30 years. Only found it during lockdown last year up in his loft inside a box of bits, it had been put away due to being rusty and needing a service and thought long long lost.

Here is how it was found...

IMG-20210112-WA0001.jpg


Now back up and running and on my wrist.

2021-02-26-8923.jpg
 
SkunkPrince
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I have never lost a watch. Damn near everything else at one point or another...
 
dsio
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My little sister was sitting on my couch trying to watch something and looking for the remote down the side of the cushion, she found a 16610 submariner in a plastic zip lock bag, pulled it out and goes “is this… a Rolex?”. I didn’t remember ever owning a 16610 but eventually figured out I’d taken it on trade for a Speedmaster 321 several years earlier and fallen asleep on the couch after doing the deal and having some drinks.
 
UncleBuck
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dsio dsio
looking for the remote down the side of the cushion, she found a 16610 submariner
All I found was some old popcorn.
 
Faz
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Misplaced a watch? Abstraction…
 
Omegafanman
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I have not lost any but I forgot I had this pocket watch - I have just had a watch rotation for 2022 and found it wrapped in a couple of socks in storage. It was nice to ‘discover’ it and get some information via team OF.
https://omegaforums.net/threads/poc...e-on-lets-see-them.71420/page-11#post-1925496

As an aside my late father gave me a signet ring in my teens. On my wedding day I swapped it for my wife’s ring in the church. I put is somewhere safe and after an amazing crazy, emotional and busy day .... despite a search it was lost :0( Many years later I was having a tidy up and found my old wedding suit... I felt a lump and there was my old signet ring. It had gone inside the lining and been there safe for 20 years.

Whenever I leave anywhere I always think watch, wallet, phone and do a quick pat check in that order. London/any big city also encourages that behaviour. Three things is the maximum I can remember so I have lost a few coats and hats ;0)
 
Togri v. 2.0
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dsio dsio
My little sister was sitting on my couch trying to watch something and looking for the remote down the side of the cushion, she found a 16610 submariner in a plastic zip lock bag, pulled it out and goes “is this… a Rolex?”. I didn’t remember ever owning a 16610 but eventually figured out I’d taken it on trade for a Speedmaster 321 several years earlier and fallen asleep on the couch after doing the deal and having some drinks.

Either it was a trade deal involving many watches and the 16610 got lost in the crowd or you must have been really really REALLY hammered 😁
 
repoman
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Hamilton Khaki, lost for about 2 years, bought a replacement, another year goes by and I found the original, another 2 years goes by and I lost one of the two again (I'm an idiot, yes), and I've had the one for at least 6+ years now. Don't think the other will turn up as I've moved twice in that period of time.
 
dsio
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Togri v. 2.0 Togri v. 2.0
Either it was a trade deal involving many watches and the 16610 got lost in the crowd or you must have been really really REALLY hammered 😁
This was a mid 90s 16610 in beat up shape in around 2012-2013, it was a $3.5k watch give or take. I had a head only EXP2 polar I picked up for like $2k usd around that time, nobody cared about them and you could walk into an AD and get anything except a Daytona at list on the spot.

Edit: for those who don’t remember, this is a mint condition GMT that sold in late 2013 here for $5250
https://omegaforums.net/threads/rolex-gmt-master-ii-16710-coke-never-touched.7963/#post-95762

And this was what a CK2998 went for in the early days:

https://omegaforums.net/threads/fs-omega-2998-6-good-cond-working-perf.1225/

Times have changed but that was the era we lived in back not too long ago
Edited:
 
Togri v. 2.0
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The only watch I have misplaced for a prolonged time was my first “real” watch, a Festina chronograph with integrated bracelet, gifted by my parents for my 14th or 15th year birthsday. I really liked it and thought it was pretty cool.

2FC64B89-9298-4CF2-9BD9-C306978716C2.jpeg


The bracelet clasp locking mechanism broke while I was on guard duty in the Danish Royal Lifeguards, so I had the watch taped to my wrist for the rest of the day. When I got off duty I put it away and forgot about it, when my girlfriend bought a Seiko to replace it.

FBCAFA9E-9896-4A85-BF77-08E27A9E26A2.jpeg


I looked for it several times after “getting into” watches as I didn’t remember throwing it out thinking it must be there somewhere.

Twelve years later I was unpacking a box in our new house after moving and there it was. My wife had kept it. So it was lost but not really missed. Now that I have it back though, it is fun to look at once in a while 😀
 
Pvt-Public
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The last watch I misplaced was just after High School, 40 yrs later, still misplaced. I’m just glad it was a real cheapo. Still living in the same house, it’s gotta be around here somewhere
 
Spruce
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Togri v. 2.0 Togri v. 2.0
The bracelet clasp locking mechanism broke while I was on guard duty in the Danish Royal Lifeguards, so I had the watch taped to my wrist for the rest of the day.

The bracelet clasp on my 1970s Casio also broke and I lost the watch.

As it happened on the only occasion that I was in a trapeze harness and the racing dinghy had capsized in the English Channel, I didn’t worry to much but I can still picture it floating off my wrist (we were both under water) and I was concentrating on getting under the buoyed hull (I’d seen 'The Poseidon Adventure') where I was able to unclip the entangled harness.

I never went back for the watch, or near a racing dingy again 😀
 
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