Save One: Round Table No. 12

Sherwin:

It’s been a while since the last round table. Let’s get to it:

What’s the watch you will save if you ever get to a scorched earth situation? Let’s say you have to–you don’t want to but you have to–what’s the one timepiece in your collection that you will keep? And no cheating. You only get to choose one. Sophie’s choice. Do you feel that you wear it as often as you should? Outside of sentimental value, what do you love about it? 

I came from poor stock. Not poor as in I only ate off-brand cereal growing up. I mean poor poor–think third world “Killing Fields” in Cambodia poor–so my grandfather from my father’s side didn’t leave me any watches to cherish. If he ever wore a watch it would have been hocked or sold for food long before he passed away in the early 80s. My grandmother who passed away in the mid 2010s certainly didn’t leave any of her grandchildren any watches. My mother’s parents were even poorer.

As such, I have a different take on the whole scorched earth scenario. If my house was burning down or there’s flooding or a coup d’etat erupted (there’s always that possibility in the Philippines), the one watch I would take with me is the JLC Reverso that I only acquired this year. It’s the most expensive thing I ever bought that didn’t come with four tires. And I’m saving it not because it’s my favorite (which it is) but because, on the off-chance that I need it to, that watch has the best chance of salvaging my life. I wouldn’t want to. But if I had to, it’s a significant amount of money if I sell it or traded it. Enough money to, say, get the house renovated, bribe a politician, or even just get enough food to last a while. Did that sound morose? 

Yet, another post referencing the Reverso.

Chris:

Easy – grandfather’s Omega.

Fun fact – I have actually done this. I was already wearing my Chronostop, grabbed the Omega and the cat. Lost everything else. Big fun.

Greg:

In 1916 my teenaged great-grandmother walked six miles from her village in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the port city of Trieste to board a boat to America. She had never left her village in Gottschee before. She married a man from Northern Germany sometime later in New York City and my grandfather was born in 1919. He was a German speaking kid in a country that had become not overly fond of German-ness. He was drafted after high school and served his country designing radar systems for the U.S. Navy during WWII. He was a skilled engineer and draftsman. After and during the war he worked for Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. In 1970 he was presented a watch for his service. It is the one that I would go back to get. He was proud of the patents in his name for radar systems and synthetic voice simulators. He never went to college. I am the first college graduate on that side of the family.

I received it while he was still alive, but not from him. My father gave it to me after Katrina. I had it serviced and wore it nearly every day for almost a decade. I had a few other watches, an old Hamilton, and another of my grandfather’s watches, a quartz Pulsar. I almost never let the power reserve wind down on the Omega. I had no idea what I had and how much better it was than the rest of my watches. I abused it. It was a lucky charm for me. I wore it in all of my trials. It was my heavy hitter.

It failed me in a murder trial when I was out of town. I put it in for service. Received it back and it failed again. It was with two watchmakers over the course of two years. That two years punched a hole in my collecting psyche. I went on a buying spree and my collection went from about seven watches to nearly eighty. I was always looking for the watch that filled that niche.

It is back now and functions mostly well. It still has issues turning over the date at midnight. So, it functions perfectly twenty-three hours a day. It will have to go to an Omega specialist. I baby it now. I don’t wear it frequently. I am now aware that all of these little machines have a finite life span and I have used up a lot of this watch’s.

I love its mid-century simplicity and casual elegance. Unlike my gold-plated watches, it always gleams brilliantly from beneath my shirt cuff. I think that watch design progressed through the decades and reached its apotheosis in the mid-1960’s. This watch is just from that peak. Once you have seen the view from the top of the mountain nothing else is quite as captivating.

Celine:

The one watch I’d save in an emergency is my late mother’s two-tone Lady-Datejust ref. 79163. With its smooth yellow gold bezel, petite 26mm steel Oyster case, silver tapestry dial, and Rolesor Jubilee bracelet, this is by no means a cool or trendy Rolex watch. It’s what I call an “old lady watch.” 

My late parents met in Manila in the 1970s and when they decided to get married, they moved from my mom’s home country to Switzerland, my dad’s home country. Mom would always tell me how she saved up her first few paychecks in Geneva to buy herself a nice Swiss watch. She was debating buying a Rolex, but she settled on a Girard-Perregaux instead. She regretted that decision and always said to me, “I should have bought the Rolex, those watches always go up in value!” Fast forward a couple of decades, and my dad bought my mom a Rolex for one of their wedding anniversaries. She was elated and never took it off. 

Before she passed away, she had explicit instructions that the Rolex was to be given to her only grandchild — my daughter. It was the only thing she had instructions for despite having quite a collection of other valuables. My daughter was only 2 years old then and she’s about to turn 12; so I’m keeping it safe for her until she turns 18. Today (March 30, 2024) is the one-year anniversary of my father’s death, so the watch carries even more sentimental value. Every time I wear the Rolex my dad gave to my mom (and I wear it often), I think of my beautiful parents — and that to me, is priceless.

Ryan:

Here’s what I’d save in an emergency: my Camy Club-Star.

I bought this watch new old stock from my watchmaker, who has since become my mentor and biggest role model. The watch packs a simple FHF ST-96 movement beneath a polished 34mm stainless steel case. It is a simple and versatile watch which is capable too.

Most people wouldn’t expect a watch of its sort to live the life that mine has. It started its life in Switzerland in the mid to late ’70s before it was exported to South Africa. It found its way into a watchmaker’s shop in Westonaria, a small mining town. That was the shop of my watchmaker’s father. He sold the shop when the watchmaker was in high-school, a few years younger than me. The man he sold his shop to was a Greek immigrant and the South African stereotype of Greeks being serial businesspeople is quite true. The Greek man didn’t have enough money to buy the shop and everything in it, so a deal was made: my watchmaker’s father keeps half of the stock and the businessman pays him in post-dated cheques. My Camy Club-Star was of the half that stayed in my watchmaker’s family.

I have taken my Camy with me to Swaziland on a motorcycle tour. If the stars align, I may get the opportunity to take it to Namibia or Botswana. It’s my talisman. I choose to wear it for every important moment in my life. Every exam, every long and treacherous journey. God willing, it’ll be on my wrist on my wedding day and hopefully the day I die too. A watch is such a personal item and each vintage watch has a story to tell, which is why I document my Club-Star in such detail; whoever owns it next deserves to know how much it means to me.

If anything horrible were to happen, this would be the one thing I save. It gets bonus points for being absolutely gorgeous too.

Chris:

I probably should elaborate?

So it is an early-ish quartz Seamaster from Omega; very slim.

It was a 25th wedding anniversary present from my grandmother to my grandfather. He played a lot of golf, so quartz was key for him so it was thin and less moving parts. It replaced a Delbana with an ETA as his main watch – ironically sat in a draw for 25 years at my parents, and I resurrected it a couple of years back. A real diamond in the rough that one.

Anyway, in ‘91 I lost my maternal grandfather, and my paternal grandfather (to whom the watch belongs) suffered a massive stroke that left him paralysed down the whole of his left side. It was not a good year for me, also being the year I was shipped off to boarding school. I’ll be honest, it was an abrupt end to childhood; both of my grandfathers were a large part of my formulative years, and it’s no fun lining up at assembly with royalty and landed gentry when you’re a cockney – you do not belong, something which teachers and prefects were keen to point out. Private school teaches one a lot outside of conventional education. 

My grandfather died in 1995, and I was bequeathed all of his jewellery amongst some other things. The Omega was part of that package. At 11, I knew little of its worth, but I wore it all the time because it was my way of being close to him, along with his St Christopher. It had a gold flexi strap, which allowed him to wear it whilst being limited in terms of mobility. I wore it religiously until I was 16, by which point I was sneaking out into nightclubs, DJ-ing at soundsystems, and “very” into girls. The girls I liked didn’t like watches…

Amongst the watches in the collection there was a gold Rolex. I remember asking my father about it: it was not real. He bought it for him on a lads holiday to Cyprus in the 70s. He had promised that one day he would buy him the real thing, but life has a funny way of never going to plan. I swore then that I would buy my father a Rolex when I was older, and when my father retired, I bought him a 2001 salmon-dialled mid-size Air King. I have rarely seen my father speechless… he never knew I remembered that conversation, let alone decide to do the same thing he promised his father. A promise fulfilled, generationally; he wears it all the time, my mother reports…

Sherwin:

I’m supposed to close this, right? Draw up a conclusion? Such amazing stories about family and history. I love that about watches, tiny pieces of cogs and gears masterfully assembled together encapsulating the essence of entire lives lived. And then there’s me, choosing money over sentimentality. I don’t mind not having an heirloom watch to baby, I really don’t. I plan to start my own tradition and leave behind a heritage that my descendants may or may not cherish. If they appreciate my watch or watches even half as much as the folks above do theirs I would be a lucky man.