In an attempt to avoid thread drift elsewhere... what was you first watch?
Mine was a Timex "Hopalong Cassidy". I was about 5. I wore it on one wrist for a few weeks, then the other. Someone may have told me that watches are worn on the left wrist but I went my own way even then. So to this day I wear my watch on my right wrist even though I'm right handed.
John
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I wear mine on my right as well. Can't remember what I had.
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No idea what my first watch was. Wear mine on right or left. Currently on the left.
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I had a Casio digital watch with a metal bracelet. I got it when I was about 7, and it was the single most exciting and fascinating thing I had ever owned. I remember the moment I unwrapped it as clearly now as then.
Right handed, have always worn my watch on the left.
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Your first watch was digital?
Blimey, star treck hadnt even been thought of when I got mine, let alone digital.
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This was in the era Douglas Adams described best, when a digital watch was still thought of as a pretty neat thing. Certainly aged 7 it was enough to send me into raptures.
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The first digital watch I saw had those glowing red LEDs and cost several hudred pounds.
Must have been about 1973?
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Mine was an old one of my dad's and far too big for my six-year-old wrist. He got a new one the same Christmas but kept borrowing mine back when the new one stopped working.
My first instinct, being right handed, was to put it on my right wrist. I remember my dad seeing me struggling with the buckle and suggesting I try the other side, and I've been a left-wrister ever since.
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I did the digital thing but went back to analogue some time ago - prefer it.
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Couldn't agree more PU. From an ergonomics point of view an analogue watch simply does a better job. You can tell at a glance what the time is, and I find that it sticks. If I'm wearing a digital watch, then I find myself checking every couple of minutes as the time just doesn't register.
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I do still own one a Seiko bought in the eighties the size of a small house on your wrist - might try powering it up.
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I'm a Seiko/Pulsar/Lorus/Epson fan and have been for decades (goes back to my use of Seikosha in-between camera lens shutters days - I reckoned if the company could make a superb lens shutter, a watch should well be in its grasp!)
First serious watch was a Seiko automatic analogue day/date in gold with a black leather strap brought back for me from the Middle East in 1971; cost was just over £17 and still works perfectly today, yet has never had the back off.
I've also got Pulsar and Lorus watches, one Pulsar being a real bargain buy spotted at Argos about six months ago.
It's a blue face Kinetic analogue watch with day and date and normal price is at least £150.
Argos price was £69.89 and a quick check on the website late one night revealed just one in stock at our two local Argos Extra shops. Instantly reserved and collected next morning...:-)
The Lorus, brand new and normally around £60 at the time, was another bargain, being spotted in a local secondhand shop (!) for just £7 some years ago.
My Epson R300 printer is four years old and churns out top class photo prints. It does take its time - probably in protest - when asked to switch to humdrum print mode.....
(Epson is, of course, a division of Seiko).
Last edited by: Stuartli on Wed 15 Sep 10 at 18:15
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For everyday use - regular watch or kitchen clock - I agree that analogue is much better. But for more complex purposes - like a stopwatch or an alarm setting - a digital display is easier to assimilate. For travel, I'd rather have a subsidiary LCD to show the time at home than a second set of hands. And have you noticed that cars have gone back to digital clocks, even in upmarket makes where it's not all about cost? I prefer it that way and I suspect some others here do too.
C'mon, let's drift again...
};---)
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mine was a timex, when i was 7 then a tegrov watch when i was 9, then a seiko 5 when i was 16, followed by a limit watch at 24 then a rado florence watch when i was 29.
finally bought a rado sintra my present watch
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My first was a Smiths pocket watch and chain - cost about £2 10s in 1961.
In the early 70s my pal in London had a 'source' for Sinclair 'Black' digital watches. He used to send them to me down in Somerset where we advertised them in the local paper and sold them for excellent profits.
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I had a Black Watch it was rubbish !
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When I was about 11, I walked in on my sister and her boyfriend making luv,
Don't tell anyone they said and you can have anything you want,
I said I wanna watch, and they said pull up a chair then!
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I had a tickaticka timex. Lord knows where it ended up. My mate had an early digital that you had to press a button on to show the LED time. A real advance that, needing both hands to tell the time...
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...C'mon, let's drift again...
...like we did last summer?
(If you'll pardon the frivolity.)
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>> I had a Casio digital watch with a metal bracelet. I got it when I
>> was about 7, and it was the single most exciting and fascinating thing I had
>> ever owned. I remember the moment I unwrapped it as clearly now as then.
>>
>> Right handed, have always worn my watch on the left.
Good heavens, SO! Are you and I on some sort of mind-meld? That's exactly what I would have posted had I got here first :-)
I can remember being expressly forbidden to wear my new watch to school in case I damaged it but I was so keen to show it off I thought that I'd risk it. Naturally enough I got rumbled and had it confiscated for a week.
I currently have a lovely Sekonda that Mrs B bought me the other Christmas but, if I had the money, I'd love to collect watches, especially Longines from about 1940-1960.
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My first watches were all manual wind Timex. Then, in the early 70's, my uncle gave me a Seiko automatic chronograph as a Christmas present. It started my passion for watches.
Kevin...
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The first serious 'Watch' I can remember was keeping a beady on the bird that lived across the road.. I must have been about 12 I guess. Wonder what happened to her?
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I think mine was a wind up Sekonda. I do recall also having a small chrome digital that you had to press a button for the time to come up in red LED though.
Anyway, nearly 30 years ago when I was about 10, Monster Munch (then owned by the mighty Smiths Crisps) were running a promotion for a James Bond digital watch that played the 007 theme tune as an alarm. It was probably a tie in to 'For Your Eyes Only' - probably the worst Bond film ever. It was the usual deal, send in x number of empty bags plus the obligatory postal order for x amount and wait 28 days.
So with pester power I managed to save up the required number of bags over several weeks and obtain said PO and sent off my order. Everyday after school was filled with anticipation - 'has it arrived yet?'. 28 days was an eternity.
After six weeks my mother got a letter saying they had run out or something similar and they had returned the PO.
My first major disappointment in life. It obviously scarred me. Thanks a lot Monster Munch.
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Mine was a Timex.
I haven't worn a watch since they started putting clocks on mobile phones.
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I've still got my first Timex. Keeps reasonable time, black face, chrome art deco numerals and date. The chrome on the winder and nearby case has worn to the brass. I usually wear it on my birthday; don't ask me why.
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I got my first watch in about 1957. My memory isn't good enough to remember the make.
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A Newmark as far as I recall.
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>>I got my first watch in about 1957.
How did you manage before that , L'escargot?
:-)
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My 1st watch was "off the boats" at the local docks - £1-10s 0p (£1.50). It lasted about 5 ears then I got an Oris for 11+ "getting to High School" - Oris are still going, my watch is not.
In early 1950s were dear, £5.00 could be a weekly wage for a labourer.
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My first watch was a wind up Ingersoll......early 60's.
It was not waterproof and unsurprisingly it died not long after I capsized in my canoe off Holy Island in Northumberland whilst wearing it........
Nowadays my Tag Professional watch is guaranteed watertight to 200 metres depth . OK when you are a professional diver but I still cannot bring myself to dive into a swimming pool with it on my wrist on holidays like some people do.
Do you guys wear a watch in the pool?
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Always wear my watch in the pool. My eyesight is not quite good enough to read the clock at the far end and I time my 40 or 60 lengths.
My first watch was a blue Timex and when I was about 12 I was bought a black Texas Instruments black LED watch which was a pain as you had to press a button to get the time. It was flash at the time though!
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The nearest my everyday watch (Omega Seamaster) gets to the deep is fishing for the plug in the kitchen sink !
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>> >>I got my first watch in about 1957.
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>> How did you manage before that , L'escargot?
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>> :-)
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There were clocks at work, clocks at home, clocks at the cinema, clocks at the bus station etc. I didn't need a watch to tell me what the time was when I was in transit between places which had clocks.
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After years of gimmick-laden digital chronographs I bought a wind-up Sekonda alarm watch as a gesture against technology. It was, without doubt, the worst watch I have ever owned. But at least I never worried about the Cold War threat of Russian technology after that.
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Got my first Timex when I was quite titchy in the late sixties (always thought they should have used the slogan "there's no present like the time" but anyway).
Lasted until I was about eleven, but then it died. Never had another.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Thu 16 Sep 10 at 11:09
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"Do you guys wear a watch in the pool?"
I don't go to pools but I'm quite happy to wear my ORIS in the sea at the beach (resistant to 100m therefore waterproof)
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Ingersoll pocket watch for my 8th birthday in 1956. My parents reasonablt thought it would resist the sort of treatment an 8-year-old might give it, and it lasted a long time.
Eventually it had (at three different times) a new mechanism, a new face and a new case. Existential question - is it the same watch? I still have it somewhere.
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>>Eventually it had (at three different times) a new mechanism, a new face and a new case.
Trigger's broom?
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Another wind up Timex, gold coloured case with brown leather strap, which immediately started to lose time. Back to the shop/repairers where it kept perfect time. Discovered I cannot wear wind up watches but modern battery watches work fine.
Seldom wear a watch but recently have been wearing my husbands although have not got round to seeing if enough links can be removed to fit me.
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Not my first watch but my last exchange with a jewellers.
My son was shopping for clothes and to while away a few minutes I looked into a watch display in a "sparkly jewellers" The window was being dressed with the latest models, the assistant pointed out a Omega Seamaster saying "this is the one you should buy" £2,000.
He was trying to be funny so I walked in, lifted my shirt sleeve to reveal my 42 year old Omega Constellation (model up from Seamaster) - it was a 21st and cost £63 + £10 for the bracelet- min you £73 was more than most took in a month
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My maternal grandfather was a watchmaker. Despite that I too was given a wind up Timex to wear to school at quite an early age but there were always examples of my grandfathers pieces around the house too. All fob watches, mainly in pewter cases with black faces and lumious painted numbers. The posher versions had a lid over the glass. All had a little key to wind them. My mother now nearly 90 and his youngest child ( he was born in 1885 ) still has some examples of his work and his tools. As a young man I went through a phase of wearing one of his fob watches on a thick silver chain with a waistcoat, jeans and ahem......cowboy boots ( he whispered ). What a twonk I must have looked but I was proud of it at the time !
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...of wearing one of his fob watches...
I'm not into watches as jewellery or as a means to tell the time, but a fob watch has always appealed.
I nearly bought a new one - Avia or somesuch - for about £100, but since I don't own a waistcoat, I sensibly concluded it wouldn't get used.
Must be getting old, I used to work out something was a waste of money after I'd bought it, not before.
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>> Another wind up Timex, gold coloured case with brown leather strap, which immediately started to
>> lose time. Back to the shop/repairers where it kept perfect time. Discovered I cannot wear
>> wind up watches but modern battery watches work fine.
>>
That's interesting, Dee. In my teenage years wind up watches used to go crazy on me, to the extent where the hands would sometimes go whizzing round as I watched them. I did here that was often a problem for teenagers, something to do with electricity in the body?
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Interesting effect, Robin. Let's hope that the same wouldn't happen if you drove your three-wheeled namesake.....
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It is a very long teenage - I found I still had the same problem when I borrowed a wind up watch from an elderly relative. I do also find I get lots of 'static electricity' shocks so this could confirm your theory.
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Warning - Über-naivety ahead.
Having posted earlier I've not had a watch all of my adult life, this thread got me thinking.
I poked about and found a picture of one on Google that really appealed, did some digging and discovered to my utter consternation that it costs fifteen thousand pounds. (It's a Patek Philippe Calatrava) I had no idea you could pay that for a watch!
I've now found a website - swissreplica.co.uk - that apparently will offer me something pretty indistinguishable in looks, if not anything else, for about £300.
I guess this is crazy, and they just take your credit card and you never hear from them again? It can't be legal can it? You don't get summat for owt, do you?
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1. congratulations on your good taste.
2. there's a report in the paper today of a web site that allows you to browse a number of fakes and then it demands "into fraud are you?" and then warns of the fines, how it's going to end civilisation as we know it and so on. Dunno if that's the one. There's an easy way to find out...
John
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I went through the site with a fine-tooth comb, and found grammatical inaccuracies, so that knocks that on the head. :)
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First was a Times. I had to learn to tell the time before I got it. IIRC I was about 7.
That even outlasted the 2nd watch, one of those new fangled LED didgitals. The timex was waterproof whereas the didgital wasn't, which I found to my cost a few months later.
The didgital was such a distraction that I got bannded from wearing it at school as all the children in my cllass (including me) wouldn't pay attention!
The didgital watch was a disaster tbh. New technology and all that, and I had to pay half the cost. I vowed then never to be first in the queue for new tchnology and wait until all the bugs had been sorted before going out and buying, if I actually wanted the product.
Probably a very well learned lesson.
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I've just remembered ~ mine was a Newmark.
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>>mine was a Newmark.
We have something in common, L'escargot...
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I had an mid 80's Timex digital watch at age 9. I seem to remember it had loads of gadgets that I played with for days then never used again. Also it played something that sounded very similar to (but wasn't) Yankee Doodle Dixie as its alarm tune. ;-)
Interestingly, every watch I've owned since has been analogue.
Last edited by: DP on Sat 25 Sep 10 at 11:17
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I had a Timex watch in the late 70s, possibly early 80s, which had an LCD display.
A simple four digits with a colon between the second and third digit.
Not sure when LCD displays appeared, but this was the first time I could afford a watch with one.
I think it cost about £20 or £25.
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Has anyone owned that timeless (pardon the pun) classic, the Casio F-91W?
Introduced in 1991, still going strong, costs less than a tenner, and according to the US government, the timer of choice for bomb makers across the world...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F91W
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...Has anyone owned that timeless (pardon the pun) classic, the Casio F-91W...
I have one which must be 10 or more years old.
The plastic strap cracked and fell off, but the watch soldiers on.
Don't think I've ever put a battery in it.
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Oh yes. As a cheapo watch for the beach. I should have bought the waterprrof version but I didn't think of that. Now £5.50 at Amazon.
John
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>> >>mine was a Newmark.
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>> We have something in common, L'escargot...
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Age, probably!
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>>Age, probably!
I've some way to go to catch you up...
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>> >>Age, probably!
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>> I've some way to go to catch you up...
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In that case, Newmark must have remained in business longer than I thought.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Sat 25 Sep 10 at 13:21
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>>In that case, Newmark must have remained in business longer than I thought.
Not necessarily. I had my first watch as a youngster - probably around 6 or 7 years of age. I think you indicated that you had already started earning a living before owning your first one.
I'm a mere youngster by comparison.
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>> >>In that case, Newmark must have remained in business longer than I thought.
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>> Not necessarily. I had my first watch as a youngster - probably around 6 or
>> 7 years of age. I think you indicated that you had already started earning a
>> living before owning your first one.
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>> I'm a mere youngster by comparison.
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You've proved nothing. I was probably 6 or 7 years old at the same time as you were!
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Smith's Empire with 18? jewels. Now wear a watch I have to leave at home what travelling to darker places......not one of my better purchases.
Jim
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Can't say I've ever owned a Rolex...
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"Has anyone owned that timeless (pardon the pun) classic, the Casio F-91W?"
I've got the 'chrome' version - the A163W :
cgi.ebay.co.uk/CASIO-A163-DIGITAL-RETRO-WATCH-ILLUMINATOR-A163WA-1QES-/120592371330
It's used as my alarm for the morning shift and 'yard work'
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Neither have I. I did look at a Daytona, and somewhat regret not having a magnified date that other Rolex models have. But too many fakers with fakes. At least with QE the value of my purchase is rising.
Jim
Slight thread drift sorry - I have alway coveted an Atmos clock, the design and engineering wonderful.
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>>You've proved nothing.
Are you a gambling man?
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My first was a Timex analogue wind-up with snoopy on, his arms as the hands. Red plastic strap Must have been 5 or so.
For my 18th birthdayI got a TAG Heuer Formula 1, worn ever since.
40th birthday few weeks ago, now very proud owner of a 1973 Omega Seamaster with the electronic F300 'tuning fork' movement. For those interested, it's from the era just before cheap quartz movements came along, and uses a battery to power a metal tuning fork resonating at 300hz which drives the movement. The second hands sweeps with no ticking at all, and you can actually hear the thing humming to itself. Just glorious!
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Whatever happened to Swatches?
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Nothing, people still take them home to match up curtains and soft furnishings.
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...Nothing, people still take them home to match up curtains and soft furnishings...
Ha, nice try, but the capital 'S' suggests a proper name, or it should do to anyone with even a limited grasp of written English.
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What was your first watch? - R.P.
