MY History With Watches

I grew up with a dad who wore a mid-1960s Tissot he had purchased while working in Germany one college summer. It was very slim. and he always wore it on a bracelet, most often on what I understand to be a JB Champion mesh bracelet like used during NASA moon missions. He had been a US Navy pilot (make that “US Naval Aviator” please) and I bet he got it at the shipboard shop. What struck me most was that he would shake his wrist periodically, which I understood by about 5 or 6 was done to wind the watch. Every kid back then saw people manually wind watches, so a watch that wound while wearing it was pure magic to me.

By the time my First Communion rolled around, I begged my parents for a watch of my own. They were concerned about the possibility of overwinding and breaking it, but knew I was better than that and they relented. I was allowed to pick out a Timex from the stand at the local hardware store counter. I still have that decidedly 1970s looking watch, and it still works.

I continued to be fascinated by my dad’s automatic. During the first summer I had a job (at the local CVS), I resolved to save for and buy an automatic of my own. This was the golden era of the quartz watch, however, and quartz watches and advertisements were everywhere. It was the smart versus feature phone revolution of its time, the mid-1980s. Automatic watches were difficult to find. I searched a huge portion of the local metro area from malls to the local jewelers and downtown. I remember not finding ANY automatics except for Rolexs, about which I inquired maybe once. It was years before I saw a Breitling or Tag, etc.  beyond a magazine ad. Eventually, I found an automatic watch in the most unlikely of places.

I just happened to walk into a small, office building-based jewelry store in my home town. It had no storefront window, so I had no idea what I was going to find. The place was mostly an engagement ring, woman’s birthday, and anniversary present shop. It might have offered some jeweler services. It was not much of a watch shop, but when I asked about “an automatic” (which the owner was surprised by), he showed me the one he had. It was a Seiko “diver”. I didn’t know what “diver” meant, and I wasn’t looking for much beyond an automatic movement and decent styling. After explaining the water resistance and showing me the rotating bezel, I was sold. I asked If I could put a deposit down and pay the rest at the end of the summer – he accepted. The reason: the price was $185! That was a HUGE amount of money for a 17-year-old kid to pay for a watch back then. I don’t know if I even told my folks the price!

I wore this watch every day senior year in high school and throughout college. Everybody noticed it – it was hard not to! It gave me, an otherwise quiet guy, some cache. It inspired all my buddies to become watch guys, some of whom have spent quite a bit of money. I sometimes refer to it as “the watch that launched a thousand watches” – in a twist on the famous phrase about the Trojan War.

As it turned out, that “diver” was a Seiko 6309-7049 “Turtle” (pictured above), now a “vintage collectible” watch. Its serial number puts its manufacture date as June 1983. I “paid in full” in August 1985. I am glad I still have it – not because of its increase in value, but because it symbolizes my history with watches (and my late father).