If you’re someone who likes to wear a traditional wristwatch, then I have some bad news. I read recently that while regular watches are still very popular, smartwatches are beginning to eat into the sales of traditional watches as they become more advanced and feature rich. Sales of smartwatches are on the rise, while traditional watch sales are on the decline.
This isn’t good for traditionalists like me but, because smartwatches offer a host of features that ordinary watches can’t match, they’re more attractive to a younger cohort. Smartwatches can track your fitness activity, monitor your heart rate, and even act as a mobile payment device which appeals to some people.
My local jeweller told me that watch repairing is a dying trade. There is no demand for these skills anymore because young people use their phones and have no interest in watches. Those who do like to wear a watch, just throw it away when it breaks and replace it with a new one. Maybe I’m just being old fashioned, but I think that’s sad.
When I was about five years old, I spent some time in the Mercy University Hospital in Cork after surgery for what was effectively a duodenal ulcer. I remember very little of that time but what I can recall is very vivid.
I can remember going to the window to watch my mother heading for the train home after her visits, but I don’t recall being upset or lonely and as far as I know, I was in there for a few weeks. Maybe that early training is the reason I enjoy being on my own so much.
Anyway, my other outstanding memory of that time, is of my mother giving me a present of a watch shortly before I left the hospital. Not sure why she did that, maybe it was just to give me a boost. I can’t imagine being very concerned about timekeeping at that age, but I did get a kick out of it. Ever since then I have always thought a watch was a nice present to give and to receive.
I was given another one as a present about fifteen years ago by my wife and kids. It was a Dalton piece, not the most expensive watch in the world by any means, but I liked it. Over the years, bits and pieces have gone wrong with it but because of its sentimental value I’ve always had it repaired. At this stage, there is probably very little of the original watch left. It’s a bit like Trigger’s broom.
I cracked the screen a few times and had new ones fitted. Then one of the hands fell off, so I got that fixed. When I worked in Cyprus, I stupidly left it on whenever I went swimming because it was waterproof, but I think that just meant it would survive a shower of rain. It wasn’t designed to be worn by someone who thought he was Michael Phelps. The entire mechanism threw in the towel after that and had to be replaced.
Not long after that, my children bought me a Garmin watch for Christmas, and I enjoyed the novelty of that for a while. It tracked my steps and kept me on the move, alerted me to incoming phone-calls, text messages and emails and was a fun piece.
After a few years though it started to annoy me. I found it intrusive, so I decided to give it a break and I went back to my Dalton. It was a dead duck by then after hibernating in the drawer and needed a new battery, but it still didn’t work when that was replaced. They broke the news gently to me that the innards had corroded and needed to be replaced again. So, off it went once more, back to the repair guy.
It was returned a couple of weeks later and I was delighted with myself until the clasp on the bracelet became difficult to open and close. Eventually, it just refused to close and hung loosely on my wrist so back I went to the jewellers. I innocently thought that would be a five miniute job, but I should have realised by now that nothing associated with this time piece is straightforward.
Apparently, the strap was designed to be integrated with the watch and as the manufacturer had gone out of business, I was told it may not be possible to get a new one. They tried their best to fix it, but it defied them and as we speak it has been sent back to Daltons. Even though they’ve gone out of business, it seems they might be able to do something with it.
By now, I have spent more money on keeping this watch alive than it cost originally but I don’t mind. I like it so I’m prepared to suffer for the cause but I’m running out of options. The watch repair guy has retired.
One option is to go for the more durable Victorinox Swiss Army watch. The manufacturer has tested it by running an army tank over it, boiling it, freezing it, washing it in a machine on a 90 degree cycle and throwing the kitchen sink at it and it survived.
Or there is also the Hallucination, a Graff Diamonds creation. The Hallucination was the world’s most expensive watch when it was unveiled in 2014 and came with a price tag of 55 million dollars.
It’s the culmination of thousands of hours of work from a team of designers, gemologists, and expert craftsmen with a kaleidoscopic array of 110 carats of different coloured diamonds in a range of different cuts, set into a platinum bracelet.
Sounds cute, but how long it would last under a tank?