collectors
opened her up, took the equally vibrant yellow cleaning cloth off the
to start it up when you first get it, and regular wear will keep it pretty
watch, and laid eyes on it.
well wound for a while, at least. It was like this big, fat, obvious “ah-ha”
Shiny steel, glossy black bezel and dial, and a look that, I now
realize, is essentially a Rolex Submariner homage with a Seamaster
Planet Ocean bezel. But it looked great to me all the same. I even
moment had happened. This was the watch enthusiast in me being
awakened with what I thought was a quality watch on my wrist.
There was something mesmerizing about the mechanical
remember remarking about how I didn’t realize (stupidly, perhaps) that
timepiece that adorned my wrist for that summer almost daily. I know
the cyclops over the date was raised over the crystal, like a bump. I
it’s been said before, but the watch felt alive, especially knowing that
turned the watch over, and said, aloud, “What in the world…?”
it didn’t run on a battery. When you stop to think about it, there’s a
strange kind of symbiotic relationship with an automatic watch. By
Rotor?
wearing it and providing the rotor the energy to wind the piece and
If you had asked me a year ago what an automatic watch was, I would
keep it wound, you are quite literally giving life to the movement. With-
have looked at you with a blank expression on my face, the way I oc-
out you, it wouldn’t work. That’s probably one of the things that kept
casionally look on test days at school. Somewhere between watching
me coming back to automatic timepieces after the Pro-Diver.
reviews of Submariners and Seamasters and getting the watch in my
I still wear the Pro-Diver pretty regularly, but somewhere along
hands, I failed to grasp that they weren’t battery operated. Clearly, I
the line I began to understand what it represented in the wider world
hadn’t watched any of The Urban Gentry’s videos at that point (I owe
of watches. Until I tried on an Omega Seamaster 300, I had no clue
TGV an awful lot, but will forever resent the fact that he didn’t show up
what truly outstanding finishing felt like; until I picked up my Bulova
in my recommended videos list sooner).
Precisionist, I didn’t understand the true value of history. In a word, I
I broke out the Invicta manual, which was also, you guessed it,
bright yellow, and read all about the way you have to wind the watch
104 | AboutTime Magazine
was disgusted. I felt betrayed, in many ways, by the watch that held my
collecting virginity tightly in its grasp, as if it was using me.