What made you aware of watch brands?
Obviously, people are aware that watches are made by certain companies and certain brands within those, but that is a long way away of forming a brand image in your mind, or recognizing the (lacking) reputation certain brands have acquired.
For example, I have been continously wearing watches since the early 1970s, but I have no idea which watches (or brands) I had been wearing in the 1970s or 1980s. And luxury brands (including Rolex) I only became aware of via the Antiques Roadshow in the 1990s.
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Balthazar
UK-based German expat. Likes cheap watches. Not bothered about brands.
Member since
Last active: 2 hrs ago
The internet. YouTube videos will quickly move you through the brands. Prior to that, the brands I knew and the types of watches they made were:
My time goes back a bit further than the Internet, or rather: the WWW. I had seen expensive watches in shop windows (we had a Wempe in town) but that did not register with me beyond the point of "so I'm not buying any of these then". On the Antiques Roadshow they occasionally had some beaten up Rolex supposedly worth $4000 which left me WTF.
And I saw one day on youtube an episode of the American version of Antiques Roadshow, where a woman had brought in the watch collection of her father. She was particular curious about the value of yet another beaten up Rolex, until the expert refocus her attention on some other of Switzerland's finest (all worth more than the Rolex), including a PP.
I was aware of a lot of budget brands from an early age - my first watch was a children's Timex that I learned to tell the time on, and I had numerous Casios (the absolute king of the playground), Sekondas, Lorus, Rotarys etc from childhood through my twenties. I was also aware of Seiko as they were ubiquitous in shop window displays, but they were way out of my league.
Non-budget brands were much more elusive though. The only expensive brands I can remember being even vaguely aware of as a kid were Rolex and Tag Heuer, but even then it was only in the context that they were "rich people watches" that weren't in the Argos catalogue, and must cost at least £200 or so, right? How could anyone afford to spend so much on a watch?!
At some point along the way, Omega and Breitling had also entered my consciousness by the end of my teens. As for other brands, I can honestly say that it wasn't until I started to tentatively become a "watch guy" in my thirties that I became aware of Patek, AP, JLC, IWC etc.
I went through the whole Timex/Casio/Sekonda route via the Argos catalogue and pressing my nose up against jewellers shop windows.
And like many I became aware of Rolex/Seiko/Breitling et al with their (for me) unfeasible prices.
Internet and YT has given me more brand info but for me, if it ain't cheap it won't fit my wrist!
Stay budget, Crunchers.
I’m with you on antiques roadshow. (also, can’t believe I wasn’t already following. Sorry about that.)
Luckily, I do have an almost photographic memory in some areas, so I can remember the watches I was wearing back then (not including the ones that survived to the present and are in my watch box) including a tikkers style ‘learn to tell the time’ watch, and a Citron digital. Then one of the F91Ws where you still had to poke a paperclip in the top left to set it, and then a ‘football’ referee Casio in 1991. I didn’t like football, but it had a cool countdown feature that felt very Bond. After that, I still have them all, apart from the Burger King/King Kong, and the Star Wars Battle droid. (One other is not in the box due to being borderline destroyed. A Lorus Lumibrite.)
Brand existence was very much from watching AR, also seeing things like the box and papers. Then of course advertising, and the good old Argos catalogue and the talking clock. I can’t say as I paid much attention to non-Bond brands or non-affordable brands until the last year or so really. I have half a recollection of seeing brands on sporting events, but as I don’t like sport, staring at the logos was a habit.