A recent contact with an aunt who I hadn't seen in 40 years got me to thinking about the roots of my affection for watches. She and I had exchanged emails a few times, and it occurred to me that my earliest memory of a really cool watch was the watch her husband, my uncle, had worn. Their story is actually very interesting, but I don't want to bore anyone. I'll just note that he was from Holland, and a pilot who was in the US on a student visa in about 1969. He and my aunt married pretty much so he could stay in the country and ended up falling in love and having a family...and are still married to this day.

Anyway, I mentioned the watch to her. She had no memory of it except to note that he hadn't worn it in 40 years. I asked her to see if he remembered the make/style of it. I knew it was a chronograph, (not that I knew that term when I was a tadpole) and when I was older and saw Rolex Daytonas for the first time, I believed his was a Daytona. In truth, it probably wasn't, but it led to my interest in the Cosmograph and eventual purchase of a pair as soon as I could rationalize the expenditure in the early 90s. She emailed me the next day to tell me that not only did he remember the watch, but he was pretty sure he knew where it was. Of course, I was excited at the prospect of just seeing photos of it after so long...whatever it was.

Alas, two days passed, and she finally sent an email to say they had found a hundred other lost items and rearranged every drawer in the house but hadn't found the watch. Maybe it will turn up someday.

So my first watch was this one, I believe, or one just like it. Not quite as sexy as a Daytona. Christmas of 1968 or 69. Please share your memories. I'm guessing most here are quite nostalgic.

 

WHEN: Circa 1972 when I was approximately 8 years old.

WHERE: Stanley, Wisconsin.

HOW: Uncle Jim...my mother’s youngest brother. He has been a watchmaker and clockmaker since the 1950s and is currently in his late 80s.

As a wee lad, I had problems being on time for stuff...it was suggested to my parents that I get a watch...so...Uncle Jim had thousands of watches...maybe he’d loan me one. I liked the pocket watches...especially the railroad watches since I was a Lionel model railroader and our small town (Stanley, Wisconsin) was a Soo Line railroad town. Uncle Jim wouldn’t loan me a railroad watch...but he did loan me a dollar watch which I believe was a Westclox with a plastic crystal and paper dial. I would haul it to school on a leather pocket watch strap. Some kids would make fun of me for having a pocket watch...and I promptly told them to “fuck off, eh”...which got me in trouble a few times.

Anyway, Uncle Jim would do an upgrade if I didn’t break the Westclox...so he upgraded me to a heavily cracked enamel dial with a glass crystal pocket watch. Dang! I busted the crystal! Dang! Downgraded back to the Westclox! So the pocket watch loaner gig went on for several years until I was doing high school, college, the military and then the airlines where I had my sights set on flying, drinking beer (off duty) and chasing women...not much time for watches. I basically got back into watches about five years ago when I received my modern Speedmaster Pro Moonwatch as a gift from my wife unit and kid units...but Uncle Jim is responsible for introducing me to watches...and for that I’m very grateful.

Some pics from a few years ago when I visited my Uncle Jim in Stanley, Wisconsin...

 

I look way cooler in the mad pup pic below...so I fixed it for you, dude.

 

I really didnt have a deep love for watches until recently. I have always appreciated them and have owned several cheap watches since I was a kid...but here's my quick story.

I remember my first watch was in my early elementary school days...it was a small mickey mouse watch with a "gold" metal casing and leather strap. I loved it as a kid and wore it often in grade school. In 5th grade I received a digital dive watch of some kind. I can imagine what it looks like but have no clue on the make/model...only that it was orange and chunky.

In middle school for Christmas my parents bought me a steel cased/steel bracelet Fossil "Blue" dive watch. 50m rated. Wore it regularly through middleschool and highschool.

In college I picked up a couple other fossil watches, and wore one on a broad leather strap pretty regularly.

Post college I haven't really worn many watches. Many of the fossil watches I had needed new batteries and were tucked away in boxes as I was moving every few years. Some of them were reflective of a "younger" me and not something I would wear as an adult. I got heavily involved in scuba diving and ended up buying my first "expensive" dive watch...which was actually a wrist watch style Dive computer. It's a Sheerwater Teric that I wear as my primary dive computer and at times, wear it as a wrist watch. It's neat being able to change the colors and go back and look at graphs in my dive logs of my various logged dives.

That lead me full circle to wanting to get a "real" watch. I've always held the belief that a man needs to have a signature watch. You know, the timepiece that becomes a part of his legacy of sorts. Corny, I know. But you always hear stories about grandpa passing down his watch(es) or getting a watch through a will after someone passes.

I was recently in a motorcycle accident and long story short, I was injured pretty badly, but have over the past year made a full recovery. I received a pretty decent insurance payout considering the situation (It was a hit and run and so my insurance covered everything on the uninsured motorist policy). I decided to use part of that money to buy the timepiece that I've always wanted, ever since my days of playing Goldeneye on Nintendo 64. A Seamaster Professional 300m. From year to year I'd oogle over the blue watch with steel bracelet and always think about the day I could buy one, cash in hand. The new 2018 model really sung out to me...and then the insurance payout happened...and everything came full circle. And now I am in love with watches. And that is how it truly all began for me.

If you read this, thanks for sticking to the end. It's not an exciting story, but for someone who is almost 35 years old now, it's been a long time coming for someone with as little patience as I do, to finally get his "Grail" watch. I know my Grail isnt some super high end and expensive watch...but this is the luxury watch I've only ever truly wished to posses.

 

BTW, loved your story. What a fun memory to have as a kid! Upgrading your pocketwatch to try to move up the ladder only to get downgraded at times when you'd break one. Haha!

 

The following snaffled from a few of my posts on WUS (no reason to retype all that)

My fascination with timekeeping started at an early age. My dad had (and I still have) a Kundo 400-day clock running on the top of the Hi-Fi cabinet, just the right height for a two-year old to marvel at and wonder how it works.

Fast forward about Fifty Five years and I'm going through Dad's stuff, coming across the Kundo in a box. I got it running again but it would only run about a month before stopping. I bought the Horolovar book to learn how to service them. The bottom line was that the spring blade was hopelessly twisted; a common reason for short running.

Suddenly, I flash back to the memories of a two-year old, lifting the glass cover and thinking "If I drop and break this thing, there's hell to pay". I was successful as there were no memories of hell (at least not for breaking the cover). I also remember spinning the balance around and around and around; never discerning what actually caused it to turn.

The real rub is that you can see where a spare blade had been taped to the underside of the base. So the twisted mess had to be at least the second blade I succeeded in ruining. I'm sure there was hell to pay there (it just doesn't stick out from all the other "hells to pay").

My first watch, a Timex with a Twist-O-Flex band my parents bought for me when I was probably six or seven. It had a radium dial that kept me up many nights. Don't know what happened to it, in a box or at Goodwill. The first watch I really got into was an Elgin Railroad pocketwatch that I found in a vacant lot while in high school. It was missing the hour and minute hands as well as the crystal and didn't run.

Being a budding fienmechanic, I decided that I should take it apart and fix it, after all, my dad did have a nice set of jeweler's screwdrivers (or so I thought at the time), that's pretty much all you need to be a watchmaker. I discovered that it had a broken pallet stone (though the piece was still in the case) and the center wheel jewel in the wheel bridge was broken. I was pretty handy with hand tools and had lots of patience so I figured I could make a replacement for each part. I fashioned a teflon bushing to replace the jewel; I figured that an actual jewel would be impossible to get and way too expensive (after all, it is a "Jewel" and the big deal on every watch back, had to be very valuable). I remember it took a few tries to get something that pressed in hard enough to stay, and to have the right hole, which shrunk when pressed in (dad's set of wire drills were invaluable). For the pallet stone, glue just didn't hold up or got in the way or wasn't lined up, so I got the hardest thing at my disposal, a piece of a file tang that I had broken off and using an Arkansas stone, I worked that little piece down to match the size and shape of the broken stone, including that little impulse angle, that I reasoned must be pretty important.

The hands were cut from a tin can with tin snips and filed to shape, then painted black. Fortunately, the second hand was still there 'cuz it would have been a chore to hang onto while filing (the other hands were difficult enough). For the crystal, I started out with a piece of 1/4 plexiglass cut into a disk and sanded the back side hollow enough to clear the hands. The front was rounded around the edges to look like what I saw in pictures, but it was still something like 3/16ths thick so it looked like a bottle bottom. A bit of buffing and it looked as good as any crystal in the store.

But it all worked. Other than the strong glasses effect, it really looked pretty good, especially for no more invested than time. I carried that thing around in my pocket for the first year of college until someone stole it from a gym bag, probably someone who I had been showing it off to. I don't remember using any lubrication, and anything I had available would have been too viscous anyway (and probably way too much).

I imagine it had been somebody's heirloom that their kid trashed and then lost, but I'm sure it hadn't seen a service in decades. I never did open the barrel or if I did, it was just to look inside. I had no idea what all those little screws on the balance were about, but I must have been smart enough not to play with them. It kept pretty good time (all things considered) and I had great fun adjusting the rate.

Just for grins, in my twenties, I put together a paper clock, which I've posted about on the clocks forum (WUS). It still runs and keeps time daily.

Now for modern watches: After my father-in-law passed, my mother-in-law gave my son his Rado. Then she took it back and gave it to another grandchild. My wife was so pissed that she went out and bought him a TAG auto. I said "How much did it cost us?", she said "$1000". I gagged and thought "I could buy a dozen watches for that price". Several years later we were back at the GM dealer, looking for another for him for graduation. We bought him an Aquaracer. We went back for some reason and I tried a few on. I thought "If we can afford to spend that much on a kid, I deserve one". Bought a TAG WAN2110 and loved it.

Down the rabbit hole I went. It's now my tool watch, the one I wear when mowing the lawn and such, but it's in great shape and back from it's first service.

 

Ironically my first watch was a timex too bought for me by my parents when I was 11 in 1973 , always recall a lad at school who's parents were wealthy had bought him this watch (same timex) and he was flashing it around.. Was so envious at the time, my parents pushed the boat out and bought me the same watch for my birthday even though we were fairly poor.. Wished i'd kept it now but its long gone. Good old Timex

 

Do you remember the model? Perhaps you should find one and add it to your collection for the sake of the nostalgia.

I wish I could remember the orange dive watch I got as a youngster. Just for the sake of being able to look at it and refresh it in my mind. Maybe find one to buy? *shrug*

 

With this 1933 Rolex Prince Observatory duo-dial “doctor’s watch”, of which I am the second owner. Acquired it from my late father in 1976. It is a chronometer, and the only one of these I have ever seen that was adjusted to 6 positions, and with 18-jewels. Movement was by Aegler. In this era, centre sweep seconds hands on wrist watches were not common. Hence the “duo-dial” which refers to the prominent seconds hand. Unfortunately, it is in a Canadian gold filled case.

 

My parents gave me a 1976 Speedmaster Pro when I graduated from high school. My father always wore one and he knew how much I admired it. It was all downhill from there.

 

My grandfather and uncle were watch makers so I was interested from and early age. My first watch was a child’s size Timex with the Speidel strap. I’ve always had 1-2 vintage watches but only recently begun collecting seriously. I inherited a bunch of stuff from them as no one wanted it but tossed most of it as the mechanical watch rebirth hadn’t happened yet. Even my local watch maker at the time didn’t want it for free

 

I don't have an exact time (pun intended) I remember but I remember always liking watches.

None of my parents or grand parents are into watches but as a kid I loved seeing watches in the store, especially the DDP brand which were colorful cheap kids watches. I had one as a kid and I chewed on the rubber strap and the rubber gave me rashes on my wrist. I guess cheap rubber + nasty child saliva probably didn't help.

At 11-12yrs old I asked for a "real watch" for my birthday. I wanted a 2 tone steel bracelet and roman numerals. I went to the mall with my dad in Wisconsin where we used to live, picked out the watch I wanted and the person at the mall tried opening the watch to put a battery in I remember. My dad I guess knew kinetic watches did not require batteries and told the clerk. We went home with my watch, my first real watch.

I wore that watch pretty much everyday until I turned 20, at 20 I wanted to buy a nice watch so for my birthday I asked family for money to fund a watch. With the money gathered from my birthday I ended up getting 3 watches. An Orient Esteem open heart that became a daily wearer, a Buran chronographe with a Poljot 3133 that is probably my favorite watch in my collection and a classic mecanical watch from Roland Kemmner.

My sister used to work for a brand in Swatch group so she would get cheaper prices on watches from the Swatch group. I got a Tissot rectangular watch for christmas thanks to this. Unfortunately once I got a job she decided to switch jobs... How selfish of her not to think of her brother's future watch purchases!!!

My grail I'd like to get for my 30th birthday in 3 years is probably a Stowa 1938 Chronographe cream dial on a shark mesh bracelet.

 

Tough one.
I was a gopher, then occasional engraver, at a local family-owned jewelry store as my first job as a teenager. At the time I was enthralled by the Seiko and Citizen "battery-free" offerings that were quite far outside the reach of my income (even with limited expenses, I was saving up for a car!).

I was a one-watch guy (whatever had been gifted to me) from that time until I was years into a career post-college, and after getting married. I never looked into it and was definitely your typical Zales or Jared customer when it came to watches. Fossil was cool but pricey.

Then I blame my wife. She had a new boss who was into watches, had a "watch club" and wouldn't shut up about Rolex. She caught the bug, and pulled me along for shopping. I thought the price tag was nuts at first, but warmed up to the idea of a watch for life and all that.

I wasn't a fan of many of the styles but definitely locked into the Milgauss. I bought myself a microbrand with a Christmas bonus for work thanks to all the new attention to horology. Then the Milgauss showed up for Christmas that year as a surprise gift from my wife. I never would have justified the cost for myself, but I wouldn't ever reverse it.

 

1993: First watch was a Timex Ironman when I was in highschool. Like the one below. We were poor, so it was a prized possession for me.



1999: When I got a job at my current employer, I decided it was time for a 'nice watch' and got myself a Bulova Quartz.

2014: When I got promoted to a regional position, I decided to buy my first 2 mechanical watches: Hamilton Viewmaster and Tissot Visodate

2018: When I got promoted to my current global role, my wife bought me a Rolex Explorer II.
-- personally, watches have marked accomplishments and milestones in my life.

 

many many years ago
As a 6 year old little boy i will always remember holding in my hands a yellow metal case watch
I can also remember quite clearly the stinging on my right ear hole from the slap i received from my father
For touching & handling the above said watch...
being stubborn i stood bolted upright not one tear rolled down my face...
If i ever catch you touching it again he said you wont sit down for a week
This watch i was fascinated by it, & it was my fathers pride & joy & just like the piano in the parlor
No one but no one was allowed to touch the watch or the piano.... ( father was a musician )
None of my brothers or sisters would ever touch either of them....
i was the youngest in the family....
Things were much more different in those days....
The watch in question was a solid gold omega constellation deluxe i believe...
when he ( my father ) passed away the watch went to my eldest brother....
complete with box & all the other paperwork & receipt of purchase...

this was my introduction & spark to watches & collecting...
yes the tears came but much later... see 5 sentence in the above....
You never know what you have till it's..... gone ....

 

I am glad you put this topic out there. I have been thinking about this for a long time - about how I got started liking watches- leaving the faith and then finding redemption. There were lots of years I wore watches religiously and was just started carrying a smart phone and then an Apple watch....

Gadgets - no horological value but we will start at the end where I found redemption.



I had been wearing an Apple watch for two and a bit years I know this because it was a gift from my wife on my 50th birthday. It does an excellent job of tracking activity like running / biking / swimming even better than my purpose built Garmin watch that purported to do the same thing.

Smaller and easier to use it was may main go to as long as you remembered to charge it like your phone every night. The haptics would constantly nag you to check on this that or the other thing. I finally realized it was causing me to be quite rude as I too often interrupted what I was doing to check in on my minder.

Over the holiday break I bumped into the owner of the building where I share office space as he was doing some year end cleanup and he happened to say "hey - do you like watches?" he then said he was about to take some things to the thrift store and handed me two watches both on spidel twist-o-flex bands. The first a Pulsar quartz in good condition but unexciting. The second is the Constellation below (and above).


I swapped the band and started wearing it and wondering where I lost my way. A simple watch is really all you need and this watch led me back to the faith.

My first watch (which I still have - this is an actual picture) was obtained by a deal being struck between my mom and myself. Learn to tell time in the analog style and you can pick a watch at the drugstore. I was successful and I netted in this deal a super cool Timex circa 1974 - second grade. It still works because - Timex.



Christmas two years later I received my first digital watch a Texas Instruments with the press to see the time button. It was a gift to my father from some relative and given he a big guy this tiny thing looked out of place on his wrist, I was he lucky recipient a I would lay awake at night in it's eerie red glow watching the seconds tick by.



By 5th grade I had graduated to a Pulsar (nee Seiko) digital watch that had a stopwatch and an alarm (Alarm!). I wore the heck out of that thing for a few years and it finally died never to return. I am sure it received a proper burial a the jeweler in my small town and I was watch-less until my next birthday.



The summer of my 8th grade year I was happy to receive this Seiko A827 which has had two distinct chapters in my life.



Little did I know this watch would become famous both being in the space movie 2010 (follow up to 2001) and a favorite of space shuttle pilots. I was blissfully unaware that I was wearing a collectors item and beat this watch to death. The bezel guards were broken, bezel insert scratched and very worn but it worked like a champ and it covered through most of my high school career. Will come back to this watch later.

Those of us of a certain age will have had one of these:



Enough said - cheap, plentiful and fun everyone should have a Swatch!

For my high school graduation my dad came through and got me my first real watch. Not an automatic but a nice watch nonetheless.


This watch was may daily (and really should not have been) for years. It is a dress watch that I wore like a diver but it only suffered one one water intrusion under warranty and finally was sent off to Omega for a refurb a few years back. Gone is the black paint in the recessed roman numerals but still a very nice watch and a chronometer to boot. Nice and thin and easy to wear under a shirt cuff.

In college I got into diving in a big way and this was the very early days of dive computers so we all were truly still using a dive watch to keep tabs on things even if we had one of the early dive computers on our wrist. (unlike today where nobody dives the tables)



This was the fully lumed dial version of the 1000 series and it was super bright when new and I wore this watch for ~150 dives over time and never gave me a bit of problem. When I was resurrecting my watches this guy would not keep running unless worn constantly. This was one of my first watch mods where I swapped out the movement with a new ETA quartz ($34!) and it keeps perfect time again.

My father is an inveterate garage sail guy in his retirement. He enjoys the hunt for whatever he is looking for and I set him out to find me a new golf bag. Mine was in poor shape and I need a "new to me" bag as I was not a serious golfer and unwilling to spend big bucks in the early days of my working life. He found me a nice lightweight Ping bag. It had some stuff in in it - balls, tees etc and it needed a small repair to be serviceable. I let it linger in my garage for 6 months until spring. Long story short I dumped in all my own detritus from my current golf bag and move on.

Out with buddies golfing I reach to the bottom of the bag to get some tees and my fingers find what I immediately knew was a watch band. Speidel twist-o-flex so I was expecting to see a Casio on the other side. I rolled my hand over to find this:



I did try and find the true owner asking my father where he purchased the bag but by that time it has been some 8+ months and did not have a strong recollection as to the address so I got a $10 golf bag with a $400 watch in side.

I got married and started sailboat racing. My wife grew up doing this and we were dinks and had extra time on our hands. I needed a watch and I recalled that my old Seiko had a cool countdown timer on it with a little sailboat on the upper left of the lcd screen when you activated a certain setting for the countdown. I did not know what a great sailboat racing watch this was. I also did not know that you could get Seiko to refurb watches at Coserv in California for a reasonable cost.



I could not find a better sailing watch and so I went about setting alerts on Ebay to find additional ones. I found two and I had two of the waches refurbed by Seiko with new crystal / gasket / bezel / band. They looked brand new and it was awesome. Trying for the third watch back to Coserv they stopped providing this service so I have the bottom one I actually wear for racing and the other two are backup's should the first one die. Crazy to think hey now sell on Ebay for ~ $400-500.

My wife's first real paycheck - she purchased me this Citizen Stars and Stripes. I was doing a lot of international travel and this had a multi time-zone function that was quite useful to me. Of course now I can barely read the small LCD display without glasses...

Nice looking watch - terrible sailing timer as if you are wearing sailing gloves the cuff of the glove would depress on of the buttons and you would lose your countdown timing. I wore this for years as my daily especially when traveling. Only my Iphone is better at multi time-zones.

This post is getting too long and these are the only watches I have with good stories anyway. I am most happy about getting back the 2852 Constellation I just had refurbished. It reignited my love of wearing a simple watch that may have a date, day / date or countdown timer but is not connected. My Apple watch is now in a drawer where it belongs while I lust after finding a nice vintage Seamaster to add to my collection.

I just got the Constellation back and have not had the chance to show Gary how it turned out - thanks Gary!

 

My grandfather passed away in 2012 and my mother inherited his pocket watch. I used to take it from its box, wind it and just stare at the mesmerizing sweep seconds hand motion. The winding sound so satisfying to my ear and the ticking movement sounded even better! That infatuation made me drift away from my quartz casio, and sparked a curiousity for reading any horology material and eventually i found this amazing forum in 2016.
The pocket watch is nothing fancy but has a tremendous sentimental value. Here she is

 

Thanks for the note - name is Dave. I felt lucky to get my hands on the Ti but dad is 6'4" with big wrists (about the only person I know who can wear Suunto and make it look normal) it looked ridiculous on him. I was fascinated with watch and the fact it had the red light up numerals. (remember Mattel Football?).

I love the Speedmaster but I would have to find the right deal. To round out the collection (flieger, dive, moon) I ended up getting the Bulova. It is the strap model that deletes the date window and uses the old style script for the letter "u" in Bulova. It has some real lunar provenance but it is not a Speedy and not an automatic but it does have a super fancy high hertz quartz that is spec at +/- 3 seconds a YEAR.

It is the largest watch in my collection and just works on my 7 1/4 wrist but it is on the outside of that scale. If I ever find the right deal on a Speedmaster it might find it's way into the collection but not holding my breath as they are pretty rich for my blood.

 

My grandparents owned a jewelry store that carried Omega and many other less expensive brands like Bulova, Seiko and Wyler. They had a watchmaker that spoke with a Swiss accent. I spent a lot of time at the shop as a little one. As a teenager I got into pocket watches, mostly to be different. I carried a cheap Russian mechanical my dad gave me, but I always admired his pocket watch. It belonged to a customer of the my grandparents' shop who worked for the railroad. My dad had admired the watch when he was young, and when the guy retired from the railroad he gave the watch to my dad.



I also admired a watch my dad kept in his dresser but never wore. The Omega Speedmaster, which he claimed was the best mechanical watch made. His Dad gave it to him in 1971 for a college graduation gift. At some point later he had it redailed and quite poorly. It now wears a service dial.

My Dad passed a bit over a year ago and now I own both watches. Inheriting the watches has spiked my interest in watches. It is a connection to a family history.

 

A convivial evening with friends and the devil ebay in the early hours