Time Capsule Collection - 2

What Is So Fascinating about Personalized Watches?

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First, they are watches with a great deal of provenance – a detailed history that I have researched. I usually find between 10 – 40 pages of information about them, including genealogies, newspaper articles, yearbooks, and photos Some have even written books, or have been cited in books. I usually gather more information about the person than their own families have (more about that later – I do try to return the watches to the owners / descendants….).  

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By researching these watches, and then wearing them, the people who bought them are remembered. The military watches are particularly poignant; please see the stories for "Waddy Young" (Athletes); Chikara Masuda (WW2) and George J. Hatch (WW1).

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Second they are unique --  it is the only one in the world! If you don’t buy it, you’ll never find it again.

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Third, inscribed watches are hard to find. On any given day, eBay has about 2,000,000 watches for sale.  About 100,000 of them are “manual winding” watches; maybe 500 of those have some kind of engraving (initials, names, locations, etc.). Some are military; some are presentation watches, and other are awards (“30 years with IBM…..”). And of these 500 watches with searchable information, maybe ten a year yield much more than the owner's basic “name and address ”.