REPOST: Nostalgia is a powerful feeling; it can drown out anything. ~Terrence Malick

I can tell you how my watch collecting started but it wouldn’t justify the extent to which the collection has grown. I suspect that nostalgia has more to do with that than anything else.

Growing up in the 90s, I always had Casios. I always loved a gadget and my parents were more willing to let me leave a store with something useful, like an extremely cheap watch, than they were another toy. I distinctly remember killing multiple F91s in swimming pools in the summers of ‘96 and 97. Water proof they certainly were not. Especially on the wrist of a kid racing his buddies in the water or having big splash competitions off the diving board.

All the kids in the neighborhood lusted after the big bulbous G Shocks of the day. Like the DW6100 or DW6300 Frogman. Definitely out of reach for little kids who were lucky to have F91w money. In the composition of this post it’s strange to me that these models hold no sway over me now. I look on them with total indifference. I chalk that up to my anemoia.

For those uninitiated, anemoia is a longing or nostalgia for a past that one has never known. For me, the 1980s in the USA. When a z28 Camero could be had for around $10,000. When Nintendo ruled the world. When movies were still mostly original and music was rad. A time when getting your initials on the leaderboard on your favorite machine in a local arcade was a big deal and a point of real pride. I, being born in 1990 never knew this world, but I’ve missed it most of my life. Love it. Can’t get enough.

This love has informed a large number of my watch purchases since my collecting began. Whether it’s my Arnie, my CA53W ala Back to the Future, or the AQ230A from Beverly Hills Cop, these watches help connect me with the age I was never to experience. Maybe I’m just a total weirdo, but I won’t pretend that I don’t put on my SMP every time I watch a modern Bond film.

Film and TV producers are well aware of the power this sort of nostalgia has over people like me and wield this power like some sort of Tolkienian overlord. Especially where the 80s are concerned. It’s cost me quite a bit of money. But hey, Casios are cheap and life is short. So what’s one more?

Thanks for letting me ramble a while crunchers. Happy collecting in ‘24

Photo editing credit: Mrs. Gnomon