My First Proper Watch

My first proper watch.

A lot of peoples first watch get lost, stolen, damaged beyond repair etc. I somehow managed to avoid these pitfalls, and here is my first proper watch. Its a Seiko 5T52-7A11 "Age of Discovery"

Its almost 40 years old now, and is has certainly seen better days, but most of the functions work, it tells the time very accurately anyway, but the alarm and world time don’t seem to be co-operating. I treated it to a new strap for its WC outing. I suppose its very 1980’s but hey this was the 1980’s!

I am sure I had watches before this one, but for the life of me I cannot remember them. There I was at around 18 or 19 (giving my age away) walking in my local town centre and looking in a jewellers window I spotted this one and was immediately smitten. Over the next few weeks I went back to the shop to look at it several times, I was somehow drawn back to it, that many WC peeps will relate to. No internet then and the only way to look at watches was Shanks Pony.

It was around £200 if I remember correctly, and no way I had that much money. These were the days you could go out to the pub, drink many pints and fish and chips on the way home and still have spent not any more than £10, so £200 was a fortune. Anyway in I went to have a look but told the manager I could not afford it. He told me I had two options, to buy it on HP or to pay instalments at the shop. Well, my credit rating was as as convincing as an Albanian pyramid scheme. So I jumped at the instalment option and paid a fiver there and then. The only negative was the manager said, in a rather stern and authoritative tone “Of course you cannot take the watch until it is paid in full”. I was offended that he thought, that I thought, that for £5 I could walk away with a £200 watch. Ahh well, in the managers defence there was a gangly Spotty Muldoon stood in front of him, and if I was in his position I may have thought the same. Anyway most weeks (not every) I went up and paid a few quid off, usually £5 but sometimes less. You must remember that at that age knackered motorbikes & cars, booze, mates, Everton (for my sins) and not to mention the fairer sex were diverting my attention. I stuck with it and it took almost a year, with a little help from my family who chipped in the last £30 or so at Xmas after they had got wind of it.

It was my GADA watch for 6 or 7 years, before anyone had thought what a gada watch was, I had no option anyway. Its got big dints and scratches, gold plating missing in parts (no idea its its real gold plating), Polywatch has tried its best and failed but after laying dormant for some time I tried a few batteries, and one of them worked! Its keeping very accurate time now. Of course I can never part with it, it is not worth much anyway. I thought about passing it on when I pop my clogs, but without being morbid I think I will get buried with it when the big AD in the sky calls me in. I have thought about getting it restored but no idea how to go about it properly (message me if you can help!) but I will probably leave it as is. As a footnote my last “proper watch” will possibly be a Grand Seiko, as I am still putting £5 away each week (this time to a savings account).

That's the story of my first proper watch and it started me on my watch journey. Thanks for sticking with it. I would love to hear your thoughts and of course your first watch stories!