I’ve always been a watch guy. It probably started when my parents surprised me with a Timex when I was a kid. The thought of having my own wristwatch was heady stuff for a boy back on the east coast (or anywhere else, I imagine). To make a long story short, I’ve been a watch collector ever since. I don’t specialize, and many times I won’t keep a watch forever. If I like the way a watch looks and it’s not crazy expensive, I’ll wear it for a while, with the duration of “a while” usually determined by the time it takes for the next interesting thing to catch my eye.
I make no excuses: I like watches, and I always wonder about guys who don’t wear them. Not wearing a watch is a common thing with young guys today. When I taught in Cal Poly’s College of Engineering, one of my topics focused on how to do well in an interview. My guidance was simple. Dress sharply, be early, look the interviewer right in the eye, speak up, don’t use the word “like” incessantly when you speak, and wear a watch. A lot of kids today don’t wear watches. If they have any interest in knowing what time it is, they look at their iPhone. That’s a no go, I’d tell my students. If you don’t wear a watch, the person interviewing you will conclude you have no sense of time-based urgency. It’s what I always concluded when someone showed up not wearing a watch.
Anyway, to get to the subject of this blog, I want to tell you about the Bulova moon watch. It’s a cool piece with an interesting story that goes like this: With the advent of the Apollo lunar exploration program (the NASA endeavor to put men on the moon), the US government decided we needed an official space watch. Omega won the competition with their Speedmaster watch, and for the next 14 missions, that’s what astronauts wore.
Here’s where it gets complicated and where the story gets Internet-fuzzy. Depending on which source you believe, Astronaut Dave Scott wore a Bulova watch on the Apollo 15 mission for one of the following reasons:
He wore the Bulova watch because his Omega broke.
He wore the Bulova watch because he felt like it.
He wore the Bulova watch because Bulova was trying to replace Omega as the official NASA watch.
He wore the watch because the US government, Bulova, or other parties wanted the official watch to be something made in America.
Whatever the reason (and you can find stories supporting each of the above floating around in that most authoritative of all sources, the Internet), Dave Scott wore the Bulova on the Apollo 15 mission, and Omega went from being “the only watch worn on the moon” to “the first watch worn on the moon.” It could not have gone over well at the Omega factory.
Dave Scott’s original Bulova, the one he wore on the moon, sold at auction a few years ago. The predicted auction price was $50,000. As predictions go, it wasn’t a very good one. When the gavel came down and the dust cleared, Scott’s Bulova sold for a cool $1.3 million. Throw in the auction commission and other fees, and you’re talking about a $1.625-million wristwatch. Wowee!
Bulova, today no longer an American watch company (they were bought by Citizen a few years ago) recognized a marketing opportunity when it fell into their laps, and they re-issued an internally updated version of Scott’s watch as the Bulova Moonwatch, complete with a 262 kHz Accutron movement. I have no idea what a 262 kHz movement is, except that the Bulova marketing hype tells me it means it’s super accurate.
The increased accuracy really didn’t matter to me when I saw the watch (I’m retired now and I seldom need 262 kHz accuracy when I decide I feel like going somewhere), so that’s not what prompted me to pull the trigger. I just like the way it looks, I like the swirl of stories around the original Bulova moon watch, and my Dad wore a Bulova when I was a kid.
Oh, one other thing helped…a trick that has prompted me to pull the trigger on other discretionary purposes. You know how the Internet spies on us, right? I mean, folks complain all the time about looking at something on Amazon or whatever and then it starts showing up in their Facebook feed. That’s not always a bad thing. When I first looked at the Bulova Moonwatch it was a $600 bauble. I wasn’t going to pay that kind of money, and I guess the spymasters/Internet marketeers figured that one out. They and I knew it was a waiting game to see who would blink first. Because I had looked for the watch on Amazon, I started getting emails from different retailers to buy the watch for less, and I let those roll in. Delete, delete, delete, and then one day, an offer floated into my inbox for $299. Hmmm. Delete. And sure enough, a day or two later and that $299 offer came with a coupon for $20 off and free shipping on my first order. Ka ching!
This article is clearly linked to the Skynet Matrix internet thing. I was just looking at buying an Egard watch yesterday and now this. Hmmm??? I too remember the joy of my first gifted watch. Have you any thoughts or experience with this brand? I’m leaning towards this Bulova now; It’s more my style.
I’ve been wearing the Bulova for about a couple of months now and I like it a lot. The styling on the other contemporary Bulovas does not appeal to me, but I like the look of this one. I have several other watches; my favorites for knocking around are usually a Timex Ironman, the Casio G-Shock, or the Casio Marlin diver’s watch (one of the best deals around, I think). I’ll do a blog on it later. I like Seikos a lot, too. I did a couple of blogs on watches on the CSC blog; I’ll probably resurrect/update them for the ExNotes blog. Lots of interest in watches. Motorcycle folks have a lot of common interests…guns, watches, cameras, and probably other things.
Truth in that. Bike riders like machinery that works, every day. We like the simple, and eschew the overcomplicated and gaudy. ( For the most part anyway.). Cameras, tractors, classic cars, restorods, guns. All are on this list for me also.
Mmmm, this article talks to me. As a guy with a few watches myself, Joe’s predilection for timepieces is something I can seriously relate to. Like Joe, I change watches up fairly regularly (though I think on a much more frequent interval than Joe). But I swear, every time I do, it’s “Yes, this is exactly the right watch to be wearing at this exact moment!” I bet Joe feels the same way…
I understand completely. And when I was a young fellow like Joe I too was rather promiscuous in my choices of a watch. Then when I was about to retire from my career, I decided it was time to reward myself with a proper watch and shelled out a hell of a lot for a Breitling. That was twenty years ago, and it’s still going great. I do have a “cheap” one, however, that I wear when I’m in dodgy places. The Breitling is not as flashy as the Texas sundial gold Rolex but for those that know it’s pretty good.
I noticed that Breitling when we had lunch a couple of weeks ago. It’s a beautiful watch.
Joe — What do you do with the old watches that have fallen out of favor? I, too, every once in a while see a watch that I’d like to have, but I think what? another watch? what should I do with the old one(s)? A little help here would be nice.
Most of the time I just push them aside on the shelf and make room for the latest one. Every once in a while I’ll give one away to a kid who looks like he (and now, she) needs a watch.
Joe — Obviously you’re not old enough to feel the burden of possessions. As I approach the pinnacle of maturity, I just want to lighten the load. I’m way past more and more. Which reminds me that I shouldn’t buy anymore folding knives as I have enough for several lifetimes. Send your kids around for pocket knives to go with the watches you gave them.