Your First Watches..

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Your First Watches..

Post by richtel »

I'm sure most of us can remember their first watch, but I wonder how many actually still have it? People often say that taste, sounds or smells are a trigger to distant memories, but I'd like to add watches to that list. Here's mine..

My first ever watch was given to me for my tenth birthday. Grease's 'You're the one that I want'' was number one and I remember being absolutely delighted to own my first ever watch. Having admired and been fascinated by my father's mechanical watch I now had one of my own.

Mine was a Timex Sprite- a take on a military style watch. The ritual of winding it each morning and habitually glancing at the time to waymark the day became ingrained. I also remember listening to the sounds it made while lying in bed- it had a musical 'ting' to it rather than a tick/tock, and I did enjoy charging the lume with a torch and watch it fade slowly at night.

That it still exists is one thing, but that it retains its original strap and case at 45 years old is another. It still works, albeit with lousy timekeeping though to be fair it's probably not much worse than when it was new! I remember making the scratch in the lower half of the acrylic crystal- scraped against a stone while standing in the battlements of Raglan Castle on a school trip in April 1979.

sprite.jpg

There then followed one or two LCD digital watches (birthday presents- one of which was a Commodore- I wish I still had that!) , bought from Dixon's in the High Street but alas with my pre-teens began a fascination with all things science, so in the name of expanding my knowledge they ultimately were doomed to being dismantled. Like many kids, I certainly remember being sat in the back of my parent's car whiling away a dull car journey by trying to stop the stopwatch to the exact second.

The first 'proper' watch (in relative terms!) was a classic Casio square DW-210, the first watch I ever bought myself with my first or second paycheck when I was 17. That thing went everywhere and did everything with me. Work, play, pub, driving test, college, University, funerals and weddings. This one did get dismantled, but this time with a little more care and finess- and several times over the years I tweaked the trimcap to help timekeeping. I remember the scratch to the glass in the top left- this time with my first girlfriend in the summer of 1986, but we won't go into that. Although the recipient of several new straps over time, this one is still in perfect working order- even the tiny incandescent bulb light. In fact there is no day it hasn't been working in 38 years. Not too bad at all.

casio.jpg

What was the first watch, and do you stil have it?
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by iain »

I honestly can’t remember what my first watch was. I used to have cheap digital watches bought off the local market with some novelty picture like action man or a BMX bike but they broke fairly regularly while playing out.

The first watch I really wanted was a Casio calculator watch and when I got one for Christmas I thought it was the best thing ever. It eventually was thrown away when the metal front plate came unstuck and I tried unsuccessfully to superglue it back on.
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by Tonywalker »

Casio Calc for me, followed by several fashion watches. Then acquired a lovely Cartier watch at 17 as a result of my boss splitting off his engagement and the two former lovebirds/ work colleagues, selling his engagement present to me at a fraction of cost. I think I paid about £300.
Trouble is, it came off my arm on a drunken night oit on on a camping trip, never to be seen again😣
STUPID BOY!
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by richtel »

iain wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 1:07 pm The first watch I really wanted was a Casio calculator watch and when I got one for Christmas I thought it was the best thing ever. It eventually was thrown away when the metal front plate came unstuck and I tried unsuccessfully to superglue it back on.
There's still a lot of love for the Casio calculator isn't there? In fact IIRC Casio still feature one in their vintage/classic collection at what feels like a very cheap price compared to when the Calc was first in vogue.
Tonywalker wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 1:26 pm Then acquired a lovely Cartier watch at 17 as a result of my boss splitting off his engagement and the two former lovebirds/ work colleagues, selling his engagement present to me at a fraction of cost. I think I paid about £300.
Trouble is, it came off my arm on a drunken night oit on on a camping trip, never to be seen again😣
STUPID BOY!
Nooooo ! Top marks for having the plums to wear a Cartier to go camping, but that must have been gutting!
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by Tonywalker »

What was even more annoying was the fact that as soon as I noticed it missing the next morning, I went back to the pub to ask if anybody had found a watch, to which the barman said, "yes, we popped it on the post outside with a note to say we had found it and wondered if anybody had lost their watch".

Needless to say, the watch was no longer sat on the post outside.

To this day, I don't know whether he had knicked it or whether somebody else claimed ownership.


Ggggggrrrrrr.

Most expensive night out I ever had😣
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by Bident »

In 1970 when I was 3 years old, my dad came home from a trip and bought watches for my siblings and me. I don't have it anymore, but I remember it was a Davy Crockett watch with a ticking pistol "firing" up and down in lieu of the seconds hand. You can still find them on eBay and other places. The example below says Swiss Made at the top, which is hard to believe given it was a watch made for little kids.
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by Macdaz »

Three years and five days ago I posted a similar review of my first watch. I've linked to it a couple of times since but thought it was worthy of repetition here. Our starts were remarkably similar, mine was a Timex, they must have been around the same year, although for me the Smurfs were No. 1 and I made the same observation about the sound. This is what I wrote:


It was the mid 1970s, I was six years old and there were two events that entwined with my still developing subconscious mind like a DNA helix.

The first was typical of the type of bribes parents like to use to coerce their children to do something worthwhile, that they wouldn’t otherwise do. I was set a challenge: Learn to tell the time and I would be bought a watch as a reward. Well that was it! A watch! That is what I needed to become a grown-up, to demonstrate my intelligence and to get the respect that every six-year-old boy thinks he deserves. A watch! In my mind that was the most valuable thing a person could own. Pictures of treasure and riches were always full of watches. Masked burglars in stripy tops and bags marked ‘SWAG’ always stole them and toffs who drove Jaguars always had a gold one ostentatiously jangling on their wrist. I had to have a watch.

At around about the same time I saw the wonder that was Sean Connery in a dramatic getaway, flipping the cap on his gear stick, pressing the red button underneath and firing a blue boiler-suited baddie out of the roof of his beautiful Aston Martin DB5. An image that stays with me today and, at least cinematically speaking, is difficult to beat.

At this point it’s worth me taking a moment to reflect and be thankful that James Bond struck a chord, because at around the same time I was also watching Grease and listening to the Smurfs...a lot! I could have taken a very different path!

Learning went well. I had an enormous plastic clock with multi coloured, removable numbers and before long I passed every test. I’d mastered the tricky twenty past vs twenty to conundrum and I won my spurs, my Timex.

It was presented like a bar of gold one Christmas morning: a shiny, perfect circle of magnificence that was everything I wanted it to be. The sweeping red hand, the numbers and indices that actually glowed in the dark because, so my Dad told me, they were radioactive! But most of all there was the noise. It didn’t tick or tock, the noise it made was a symphony of wonder that is the thing I most remember about this watch.

The sound was a rapid, metallic plink plink plink plink plink. A siren song which when amplified by the night and sung from my bedside table, gave me comfort in the dark, protected me from the monsters and sang the lullaby that sent me to sleep, every night for years. It was a constant through the Christmas Eves when I tried desperately to sleep before Santa arrived. It brought me back to safety when I jolted awake from a nightmare and it taunted me during the endless summer days when, early to bed, I was expected to sleep when the sun was still shining and I knew the older kids were playing outside the window. I never went out without it, I felt naked if I did. It was my armour, my shield, my badge of honour and my constant companion. My strongest childhood memory is that watch and when I think of those times, in my head, I still hear the sound.

The picture is recent. The dozens of straps I got through have been lost and the spring bars have long since sprung. The crystal bears the scars of prison breaks, daring heists and countless battles with dragons, dark knights, enemy soldiers and alien invaders. But it still runs, it gains about five minutes per day, it needs a service and I think it’s probably out of warranty, but it’s still enough to hear the plink plink plink plink plink and be a child again.

And so it began. From the first day I heard that plink the course was set: watches made me happy and maybe, just maybe, they would lead to me firing a baddie out of the roof of an Aston Martin.
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by richtel »

Bident wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 6:52 pm In 1970 when I was 3 years old, my dad came home from a trip and bought watches for my siblings and me. I don't have it anymore, but I remember it was a Davy Crockett watch with a ticking pistol "firing" up and down in lieu of the seconds hand. You can still find them on eBay and other places. The example below says Swiss Made at the top, which is hard to believe given it was a watch made for little kids.
Wow, I've never seen anything like that before! I'm not sure I could tell the time at that age, but if you've got Davy Crockett on your wrist shooting up bad guys then who cares! :D
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by Bident »

richtel wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 9:35 pm
Bident wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 6:52 pm In 1970 when I was 3 years old, my dad came home from a trip and bought watches for my siblings and me. I don't have it anymore, but I remember it was a Davy Crockett watch with a ticking pistol "firing" up and down in lieu of the seconds hand. You can still find them on eBay and other places. The example below says Swiss Made at the top, which is hard to believe given it was a watch made for little kids.
Wow, I've never seen anything like that before! I'm not sure I could tell the time at that age, but if you've got Davy Crockett on your wrist shooting up bad guys then who cares! :D
I'm sure I couldn't tell the time at that age, but as you point out it didn't matter!
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by richtel »

Macdaz wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 6:57 pm
(snipped)

It was presented like a bar of gold one Christmas morning: a shiny, perfect circle of magnificence that was everything I wanted it to be. The sweeping red hand, the numbers and indices that actually glowed in the dark because, so my Dad told me, they were radioactive! But most of all there was the noise. It didn’t tick or tock, the noise it made was a symphony of wonder that is the thing I most remember about this watch.

The sound was a rapid, metallic plink plink plink plink plink. A siren song which when amplified by the night and sung from my bedside table, gave me comfort in the dark, protected me from the monsters and sang the lullaby that sent me to sleep, every night for years. It was a constant through the Christmas Eves when I tried desperately to sleep before Santa arrived. It brought me back to safety when I jolted awake from a nightmare and it taunted me during the endless summer days when, early to bed, I was expected to sleep when the sun was still shining and I knew the older kids were playing outside the window. I never went out without it, I felt naked if I did. It was my armour, my shield, my badge of honour and my constant companion. My strongest childhood memory is that watch and when I think of those times, in my head, I still hear the sound.

I'm totally with you about the sense of occasion on being given your first watch. They were a relatively costly, delicate thing for a child which would require taking care of. Such pride and responsibility.

We're in agreement with the musically soothing noise from the M24/M25 movement. No jewels and looking somewhat industrial, it appears some were not intended to ever be disassembled, and a quick bath in solvent was the best you could manage. Some models were assembled with screws rather than staked rivets, but look to be a pig to reassemble. Timex would, of course, rather you just bought a new one.

I'm chuffed you hold your first watch in the same reverence as I do.
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by Macdaz »

richtel wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 10:07 pm I'm chuffed you hold your first watch in the same reverence as I do.
I certainly do. Sometimes I wind it up just to listen to the sound. :D
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by asqwerth »

I think the first watch my parents bought for me was when I was maybe 10. It was a Seiko, and it was a very nice brushed stainless steel watch, including the dial. The bracelet was one of those where the band on each side was a single rigid curved piece (ie no links). I really liked that watch but have no idea why I stopped wearing it. Maybe it died one day and couldn't be repaired. Can't recall.

The first watch I chose for myself - probably when I was 16 or 17- was a Casio digital on bracelet. It was similar to this, with the same functions:

Image

Again, I have no idea where it is now.
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

Macdaz wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 6:57 pm I was set a challenge: Learn to tell the time and I would be bought a watch as a reward. Well that was it! A watch! That is what I needed to become a grown-up, to demonstrate my intelligence and to get the respect that every six-year-old boy thinks he deserves. A watch! In my mind that was the most valuable thing a person could own. Pictures of treasure and riches were always full of watches. Masked burglars in stripy tops and bags marked ‘SWAG’ always stole them and toffs who drove Jaguars always had a gold one ostentatiously jangling on their wrist. I had to have a watch.
This really resonates with me. I was also promised a watch for Christmas if I learned to tell the time fluently. My grandad was in cahoots with me (isn’t that often the case?) and he made jolly sure that I did learn. I don’t really remember much about the watch but it was a boys’ Timex, I’m sure of that. This photo was taken on holiday in Cornwall the following summer, when I was seven.

Image

Regarding the bribe or incentive, I think it was a very good way of getting a child to do something that was a useful and practical life skill anyway. I’ve met plenty of children in my teaching career who were wearing watches but couldn’t tell the time on them!
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by tikkathree »

Here they are, my 1st, 2nd and 3rd watches.

The Seiko auto was presented to me at about 10 years of age and was bought with green shield stamps: remember them?

The Casio I bought from a branch of Dixons/Currys and basically it was a "happy birthday to me" reward when I turned 21 in 1974. I don't think I've changed the battery more than five times in the passage of time. I've changed straps more often than batteries! I popped the back hoping that I'd have recorded the "date fitted" on the battery - I didn't but look at the size of it!

Then came my first Seiko 7T34 Flightmaster. I can't remember when exactly that was but definitely since 1983 when we moved to Suffolk.

All three watches work. I messed with the original seiko painting the dial markers with lume paint: what a mess I made!! I had the watch serviced a couple of years ago. The 7T34 eats batteries in about 3 years and it has been doing the two-second hop for several months now and I'm just curious to see how long it runs.

Watch number 4? That was probably a Christopher Ward but that and watches 5-12 are all long since flipped.
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Re: Your First Watches..

Post by richtel »

asqwerth wrote: Mon Feb 27, 2023 10:31 am I think the first watch my parents bought for me was when I was maybe 10. It was a Seiko, and it was a very nice brushed stainless steel watch, including the dial. The bracelet was one of those where the band on each side was a single rigid curved piece (ie no links). I really liked that watch but have no idea why I stopped wearing it. Maybe it died one day and couldn't be repaired. Can't recall.

The first watch I chose for myself - probably when I was 16 or 17- was a Casio digital on bracelet. It was similar to this, with the same functions:

Again, I have no idea where it is now.
No doubt a member of the F91W family- a core of the Casio brand which has just run and run. I remember my father had a black plastic F91-style watch which he bought, sadly, after he damaged his mechanical watch against a metal railing- a result of an increasingly awkward gait as he became less mobile. Since his passing I've had his old mechanical watch serviced with a new crystal- something which I think he probably thought was not worth the effort. There was too much sentimental value to that old watch to not do so.
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