What's Your Origin Story? (A MoT's/WatchWithUs Giveaway!)

[McLovin]

I needed a hobby and I hate golf. Watches seemed cool. Next thing I know I have like 60 of them.

[sobwanhoser]

I needed a hobby and I hate golf. Watches seemed cool. Next thing I know I have like 60 of them.

And the MoT HUISABH thread is like attending an AA meeting inside the liquor store....

[aeroman5]

When looking for my first 'proper' watch I came across microbrands and the Halios Seaforth. I fell for the pastel blue with the 12 hour bezel and but was disappointed to discover that they were all sold out. I checked eBay everyday and had alerts set up on watch recon, but not being in the USA made it difficult (CONUS, the worst word to an international watch collector). I ended up buying 2 other watches. Then a few weeks later, one came up on Watchuseek locally and I just couldn't resist. In 2 years I've gone from buying my first proper watch to owning over 20.

[ohhenry1]

When I was in college, I wore a vintage hand winder. I wasn't a WIS at the time, so I don't remember what it was (I think it might actually have been a Girard Perregaux!), but by the time I graduated, it had taken in some water and deteriorated badly, so I threw it away. After that, I got it into my head that "true luxury" was simply not wearing a watch at all. And so, for nearly the next 20 years, I didn't wear a watch at all. Crazy, huh? It was only a SD bargain for Timex Weekender that got me wearing watch again. And so I wore only that for a couple/few years. I enjoyed wearing it (though not the ticking), but it didn't convert me into a WIS. It did, however, get me wearing a watch again. Later on, after a few years of truly concerted work, that had me seeing little of my friends, I wanted to buy something to symbolize the hard work and success of those "invisible years." Bought myself a Certina DS Podium, then a Seiko SNK803, and fell in love with the magic of mechanical watches. The rest, as they say, is history!

[AndroidIsAwesome]

My story is nothing special but it started back when I was like 3 or 4, in church my dad would always wear a nautica diver and I was obsessed with spinning the bezel on it, no idea why lol. My parents got me a few cheap kids toy watches over the years and then when I was around 9 or 10 maybe they got me my first real watch- a timex expedition. It was awesome especially the indiglo feature. I still have it and it still wears great on wrist.





After watching Casino Royale for the first time I got hooked on james bond movies and from that day onward I told myself I will buy an Omega Seamaster one day.

Then I sort of stopped wearing a watch for a while before eventually getting interested in the first smart watches that were coming out. I pre ordered the very first samsung galaxy gear watch wayyyy back and it was incredible at the time. Nothing like it existed and I felt like James bond wearing it because it was so high tech. It even had a camera built into the watch strap. I still have it too.

Eventually I headed off to university and needed a watch for all my exams and classes, so I bought a Casio ae1200. I literally wore it everywhere everyday for the year and scratched the absolute hell out of it. But it still is keeping time to this day perfectly. I should probably clean it lol.....



At this point I needed something nicer and became really interested in automatic watches. Spent 3 months deciding what to buy with my little amount of money and went with an Orient ray 2. Such a great looking watch, I wore it quite a bit before really getting into the hobby. Still own it as well and probably won't sell it ever.



More recently in 2019 I bought my Grand seiko sbgx085. I found it for a ridiculous deal on Rakuten global and was freaking out when I ordered it because it was the most money I had ever spent on a watch. When it arrived I was blown away by how nice it was. It is currently still my favorite watch I've owned.



This past August I was gifted my Great-grandfathers Omega from around 1949-1951. He wore it nearly everyday for 40+ years I was told. It is still running but hasn't been serviced in decades so I will need to get it serviced sometime in the future.



Of course there have been many other watches and stories in between, but these are the highlights of my journey in this hobby. Oh and my interest in watches exponentially increased after switching from watchuseek to ManOnTime in 2018.

[Stretch44]

My story is nothing special but it started back when I was like 3 or 4, in church my dad would always wear a nautica diver and I was obsessed with spinning the bezel on it, no idea why lol. My parents got me a few cheap kids toy watches over the years and then when I was around 9 or 10 maybe they got me my first real watch- a timex expedition. It was awesome especially the indiglo feature. I still have it and it still wears great on wrist.





After watching Casino Royale for the first time I got hooked on james bond movies and from that day onward I told myself I will buy an Omega Seamaster one day.

Then I sort of stopped wearing a watch for a while before eventually getting interested in the first smart watches that were coming out. I pre ordered the very first samsung galaxy gear watch wayyyy back and it was incredible at the time. Nothing like it existed and I felt like James bond wearing it because it was so high tech. It even had a camera built into the watch strap. I still have it too.

Eventually I headed off to university and needed a watch for all my exams and classes, so I bought a Casio ae1200. I literally wore it everywhere everyday for the year and scratched the absolute hell out of it. But it still is keeping time to this day perfectly. I should probably clean it lol.....



At this point I needed something nicer and became really interested in automatic watches. Spent 3 months deciding what to buy with my little amount of money and went with an Orient ray 2. Such a great looking watch, I wore it quite a bit before really getting into the hobby. Still own it as well and probably won't sell it ever.



More recently in 2019 I bought my Grand seiko sbgx085. I found it for a ridiculous deal on Rakuten global and was freaking out when I ordered it because it was the most money I had ever spent on a watch. When it arrived I was blown away by how nice it was. It is currently still my favorite watch I've owned.



This past August I was gifted my Great-grandfathers Omega from around 1949-1951. He wore it nearly everyday for 40+ years I was told. It is still running but hasn't been serviced in decades so I will need to get it serviced sometime in the future.



Of course there have been many other watches and stories in between, but these are the highlights of my journey in this hobby. Oh and my interest in watches exponentially increased after switching from watchuseek to ManOnTime in 2018.

Wait a second... not a single mention of Eterna?

[Stretch44]

I first got into watches when I was about 12 years old. I went to a Zales at the local outlets and spotted a Swiss Army Officer's 1884. I bought it and wore it pretty much every day until graduating college. My parents gifted me the Chrono version when I graduated. I still have it and wear it on occasion.

I think I still have the 1884 watch head in a drawer. The pic below isn't mine. After the Chrono, I got a mechanical and it was downhill from there. My Swiss Army Officer's still has a soft spot because I loved that watch and thought I was so cool.

[AndroidIsAwesome]

My story is nothing special but it started back when I was like 3 or 4, in church my dad would always wear a nautica diver and I was obsessed with spinning the bezel on it, no idea why lol. My parents got me a few cheap kids toy watches over the years and then when I was around 9 or 10 maybe they got me my first real watch- a timex expedition. It was awesome especially the indiglo feature. I still have it and it still wears great on wrist.





After watching Casino Royale for the first time I got hooked on james bond movies and from that day onward I told myself I will buy an Omega Seamaster one day.

Then I sort of stopped wearing a watch for a while before eventually getting interested in the first smart watches that were coming out. I pre ordered the very first samsung galaxy gear watch wayyyy back and it was incredible at the time. Nothing like it existed and I felt like James bond wearing it because it was so high tech. It even had a camera built into the watch strap. I still have it too.

Eventually I headed off to university and needed a watch for all my exams and classes, so I bought a Casio ae1200. I literally wore it everywhere everyday for the year and scratched the absolute hell out of it. But it still is keeping time to this day perfectly. I should probably clean it lol.....



At this point I needed something nicer and became really interested in automatic watches. Spent 3 months deciding what to buy with my little amount of money and went with an Orient ray 2. Such a great looking watch, I wore it quite a bit before really getting into the hobby. Still own it as well and probably won't sell it ever.



More recently in 2019 I bought my Grand seiko sbgx085. I found it for a ridiculous deal on Rakuten global and was freaking out when I ordered it because it was the most money I had ever spent on a watch. When it arrived I was blown away by how nice it was. It is currently still my favorite watch I've owned.



This past August I was gifted my Great-grandfathers Omega from around 1949-1951. He wore it nearly everyday for 40+ years I was told. It is still running but hasn't been serviced in decades so I will need to get it serviced sometime in the future.



Of course there have been many other watches and stories in between, but these are the highlights of my journey in this hobby. Oh and my interest in watches exponentially increased after switching from watchuseek to ManOnTime in 2018.

Wait a second... not a single mention of Eterna?

Alright fine you got me.....


.... And then in mid 2020 I took over Eterna and became their #1 shareholder and soon to be CEO

[sobwanhoser]

My story is nothing special but it started back when I was like 3 or 4, in church my dad would always wear a nautica diver and I was obsessed with spinning the bezel on it, no idea why lol. My parents got me a few cheap kids toy watches over the years and then when I was around 9 or 10 maybe they got me my first real watch- a timex expedition. It was awesome especially the indiglo feature. I still have it and it still wears great on wrist.





After watching Casino Royale for the first time I got hooked on james bond movies and from that day onward I told myself I will buy an Omega Seamaster one day.

Then I sort of stopped wearing a watch for a while before eventually getting interested in the first smart watches that were coming out. I pre ordered the very first samsung galaxy gear watch wayyyy back and it was incredible at the time. Nothing like it existed and I felt like James bond wearing it because it was so high tech. It even had a camera built into the watch strap. I still have it too.

Eventually I headed off to university and needed a watch for all my exams and classes, so I bought a Casio ae1200. I literally wore it everywhere everyday for the year and scratched the absolute hell out of it. But it still is keeping time to this day perfectly. I should probably clean it lol.....



At this point I needed something nicer and became really interested in automatic watches. Spent 3 months deciding what to buy with my little amount of money and went with an Orient ray 2. Such a great looking watch, I wore it quite a bit before really getting into the hobby. Still own it as well and probably won't sell it ever.



More recently in 2019 I bought my Grand seiko sbgx085. I found it for a ridiculous deal on Rakuten global and was freaking out when I ordered it because it was the most money I had ever spent on a watch. When it arrived I was blown away by how nice it was. It is currently still my favorite watch I've owned.



This past August I was gifted my Great-grandfathers Omega from around 1949-1951. He wore it nearly everyday for 40+ years I was told. It is still running but hasn't been serviced in decades so I will need to get it serviced sometime in the future.



Of course there have been many other watches and stories in between, but these are the highlights of my journey in this hobby. Oh and my interest in watches exponentially increased after switching from watchuseek to ManOnTime in 2018.

Wait a second... not a single mention of Eterna?

Alright fine you got me.....


.... And then in mid 2020 I took over Eterna and became their #1 shareholder and soon to be CEO

I find the Eterna on the far right sweet!

I have a Timex Expedition like yours but it seems to have shuffled off it's mortal coil...used to be my camping watch until it stopped working properly. One year while on vacation, I went to a "high end" watch boutique while my wife & kids were shopping, and the fake praise the sales lady behind the counter gave my Expedition was priceless...it was on a F71 Nato though, so....

[MoT]

At 12:00am EST, [mention]cortman[/mention] and [mention]Kirk B[/mention] were tied with 11 "Likes" each.

I will be flipping a coin in the morning to determine who will be receiving the Timex Q from Watch With Us.

Thank you to everyone who participated! I really enjoyed reading all of your stories.

[MoT]

Congratulations [mention]cortman[/mention]!

A virtual coin-flip determined that you will be receiving the Timex Q Reissue courtesy of WatchWithUs!



Thank you to [mention]Kirk B[/mention] and to everyone else who posted their story. These were a lot of fun to read, and I found it interesting how each story had some common elements, proof once again that regardless of background, this hobby has brought us all together.

[cortman]

Thank you [mention]Rixsler86[/mention] and [mention]ManOnTime[/mention] ! I have eyed up the Q for a long time but never pulled the trigger on one. Can't wait to see how it wears!

[Boourns]

I don't think this post qualifies for this contest because it's not about how I got into the hobby. (That story is boring: I had a Pebble in like 2015 and wanted a "grown up" watch. I started googling Daniel Wellington then saw the light. The end). So I didn't submit this by the deadline, but I wanted to share it.

This is a story about the watch my parents got me in high school. A quartz Bulova Marine Star. Here it is today:



Yes that’s dust under the glass. Yes that’s a chip at 21 minutes. This is a story about this watch. More specifically, this is a story about how this watch saved my life. Maybe not solely, but at least partly. I haven’t told this story to many people because my hands get tingly thinking about it.

In 2003 I was in college and went through a rough breakup. I got dumped by a girl who I thought I'd be with for a long time. It hurt. A lot. After the school year was over, I still wasn't doing well.

My best friend's parents had just bought a house in Alaska, of all places, and he was going up there for the summer to help them fix it up. I had planned on getting a job that summer, but I decided screw it, I'm going to Alaska for the summer to clear my head. A third very good friend decided to join us.

This is the house after we cleared the overgrown yard and started to build a deck.



The house is about 2 miles outside of this small town.



When you are college age and in Alaska there is lots of dumb stuff to do. Here’s one of my idiot friends climbing a super tall tree. He didn’t die doing this.



But I almost did doing something else.

In and around this town there are a TON of places to hike and explore. There are few groomed trails, but otherwise, it’s wilderness. Here’s the view from a groomed trail to the top of a mountain.



One place we liked to go that summer was across a small inlet that eventually feeds to the Pacific Ocean. We’d canoe across, hike a bit, and climb up some moderate terrain. At that point you could get to a spot where you could see a glacier. Pretty neat. One day we decided to go farther, to see how close to the glacier we could get. We got close but didn’t make it all the way there.

At one point we were up pretty high. The terrain was getting much steeper. The path we were making took us along the side of an undulating mountain where sometimes there was running water and sometimes the water froze. Imagine two parallel lines. This portion of the mountain was the left line. The frozen river was the right line.

Eventually, we came on the rock face that was perpendicular to our path, in our way. The face felt like 80 degrees vertical (I’m sure it was probably less), and about for about six feet wide. After the rock face it flattened out again. To continue, we had to get across the rock face.

To traverse this space, you basically had to get onto the rock face and shimmy/rock climb sideways for the six feet. Where you came from would be on your left, where you’re going on your right. Your face is against the mountain, and the frozen river is behind you. As you were rock climbing, if you looked down you could see a deep crevasse created between where the mountain went down and met the frozen water.

Well, my two friends went first and made it no problem. Then my turn. As you may have guessed by now, it didn’t go well.

As I’m halfway across -- hands plastered to the rock and the toes of my tennis shoes bent, pushing up against the rock for traction -- I continue to shimmy. But then I just start slipping. Not any particular foot or hand, but my whole body, like a cartoon that splats against a wall and slides down. I panic. There’s a crevasse wide enough for my body to fit in, of unknown depth, below me. That’s where I’m headed.

I tense up, my heart explodes, and my stomach jumps. I try to push against the rock with everything I have. There’s nothing to hold; I’m relying on friction. Ridiculously, I actually flash back to high school physics: Static friction is stronger than sliding friction, and I have already started sliding, so I am screwed. I thought I was going to die.

My friends saw the whole thing happen. They thought I was going to die, or at least be trapped down there, and we were an hour-plus hike, 30-minute canoe ride, and 15 minute drive away from the house. No cell phones. No rope.

Then I stop. I still don’t know how. It doesn’t make sense. It felt like I was sliding forever, but my friends say it was about two feet.

I carefully reverse course and get off that **** rock. I tell my friends they can go ahead because I am not going any further that day. They decide they weren’t either, so they VERY carefully shimmy back across the rock face and we go home. I have a drink.

On the way back to the house, I look down at the watch I was wearing. The Bulova that, even at that time, was probably seven years old. I notice the clasp is scratched to hell.

Here it is today:



You can feel those scratches. They are deep. They are from the mountain. Did the clasp catch and stop me from sliding? Maybe it was my shoe, or knee, or hands, or stomach, or a combination of all of it. I don’t know.

But I’m never getting rid of this watch.

[cortman]

I don't think this post qualifies for this contest because it's not about how I got into the hobby.

Good grief what a story. If we ever hold a "best watch story" contest that has my vote hands down. Glad you're around today!!

[MoT]

I don't think this post qualifies for this contest because it's not about how I got into the hobby. (That story is boring: I had a Pebble in like 2015 and wanted a "grown up" watch. I started googling Daniel Wellington then saw the light. The end). So I didn't submit this by the deadline, but I wanted to share it.

This is a story about the watch my parents got me in high school. A quartz Bulova Marine Star. Here it is today:



Yes that’s dust under the glass. Yes that’s a chip at 21 minutes. This is a story about this watch. More specifically, this is a story about how this watch saved my life. Maybe not solely, but at least partly. I haven’t told this story to many people because my hands get tingly thinking about it.

In 2003 I was in college and went through a rough breakup. I got dumped by a girl who I thought I'd be with for a long time. It hurt. A lot. After the school year was over, I still wasn't doing well.

My best friend's parents had just bought a house in Alaska, of all places, and he was going up there for the summer to help them fix it up. I had planned on getting a job that summer, but I decided screw it, I'm going to Alaska for the summer to clear my head. A third very good friend decided to join us.

This is the house after we cleared the overgrown yard and started to build a deck.



The house is about 2 miles outside of this small town.



When you are college age and in Alaska there is lots of dumb stuff to do. Here’s one of my idiot friends climbing a super tall tree. He didn’t die doing this.



But I almost did doing something else.

In and around this town there are a TON of places to hike and explore. There are few groomed trails, but otherwise, it’s wilderness. Here’s the view from a groomed trail to the top of a mountain.



One place we liked to go that summer was across a small inlet that eventually feeds to the Pacific Ocean. We’d canoe across, hike a bit, and climb up some moderate terrain. At that point you could get to a spot where you could see a glacier. Pretty neat. One day we decided to go farther, to see how close to the glacier we could get. We got close but didn’t make it all the way there.

At one point we were up pretty high. The terrain was getting much steeper. The path we were making took us along the side of an undulating mountain where sometimes there was running water and sometimes the water froze. Imagine two parallel lines. This portion of the mountain was the left line. The frozen river was the right line.

Eventually, we came on the rock face that was perpendicular to our path, in our way. The face felt like 80 degrees vertical (I’m sure it was probably less), and about for about six feet wide. After the rock face it flattened out again. To continue, we had to get across the rock face.

To traverse this space, you basically had to get onto the rock face and shimmy/rock climb sideways for the six feet. Where you came from would be on your left, where you’re going on your right. Your face is against the mountain, and the frozen river is behind you. As you were rock climbing, if you looked down you could see a deep crevasse created between where the mountain went down and met the frozen water.

Well, my two friends went first and made it no problem. Then my turn. As you may have guessed by now, it didn’t go well.

As I’m halfway across -- hands plastered to the rock and the toes of my tennis shoes bent, pushing up against the rock for traction -- I continue to shimmy. But then I just start slipping. Not any particular foot or hand, but my whole body, like a cartoon that splats against a wall and slides down. I panic. There’s a crevasse wide enough for my body to fit in, of unknown depth, below me. That’s where I’m headed.

I tense up, my heart explodes, and my stomach jumps. I try to push against the rock with everything I have. There’s nothing to hold; I’m relying on friction. Ridiculously, I actually flash back to high school physics: Static friction is stronger than sliding friction, and I have already started sliding, so I am screwed. I thought I was going to die.

My friends saw the whole thing happen. They thought I was going to die, or at least be trapped down there, and we were an hour-plus hike, 30-minute canoe ride, and 15 minute drive away from the house. No cell phones. No rope.

Then I stop. I still don’t know how. It doesn’t make sense. It felt like I was sliding forever, but my friends say it was about two feet.

I carefully reverse course and get off that **** rock. I tell my friends they can go ahead because I am not going any further that day. They decide they weren’t either, so they VERY carefully shimmy back across the rock face and we go home. I have a drink.

On the way back to the house, I look down at the watch I was wearing. The Bulova that, even at that time, was probably seven years old. I notice the clasp is scratched to hell.

Here it is today:



You can feel those scratches. They are deep. They are from the mountain. Did the clasp catch and stop me from sliding? Maybe it was my shoe, or knee, or hands, or stomach, or a combination of all of it. I don’t know.

But I’m never getting rid of this watch.

What a story!

Please don't share an image of inside of the pants you were wearing.