A Man and His Watch by Matt Hranek

Author:Matt Hranek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Artisan
Published: 2017-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

JOSH CONDON

writer, editor & author

Movado Moon Phase

Watches aren’t really a big deal in my family, but the idea of heirlooms is. Over the years, I’ve been handed down a number of interesting things from grandparents and great-grandparents and relatives from various branches of the family tree—my grand­father’s Givenchy tuxedo, an old Montblanc fountain pen, the odd pair of cuff links, a beautiful navy wool peacoat that must weigh ten pounds and supposedly dates back to World War I. My dad loves passing things on to his kids, even if it’s just a shirt of his that you once said you liked. There’s never any ceremony, and not much of a story; one day he’ll simply hand you something like an old cribbage board and say something like, “Isn’t this cool? This was your grandfather’s. You should have it.”

My dad has a few watches, some of them expensive, but he’s not an enthusiast. A few years back when I was visiting him in Massachusetts, where I grew up, he kept going on about this delicate little Movado he’d bought on eBay. It’s a tiny little thing, maybe 29mm—I’m pretty sure it’s a woman’s watch, actually—with sub­dials for the day and date, and another for the second hand, which also incorporates a moon phase. It’s gold-plated and quartz-powered­, and a collector wouldn’t look at it twice, but my dad just fell in love with it.

I’d started writing about watches for magazines and had been really reading up on the subject, and as happens to a lot of budding enthusiasts, knowing a little made me a bit snobbish. I always liked the way that Movado looked, but because it didn’t mean anything in the collector world, I didn’t think it had any value. But two years ago, on my thirty-sixth birthday, my dad gave me his watch—not the one off his wrist, but the exact same model, which he had been searching for since he bought his own. He spent two years tracking down three more, one each for me and my two younger brothers, having them cleaned and serviced and replacing the bands. He gifted them to each of us on special occasions—a birthday, starting a new job, buying a house. So all the men in my family now wear the same watch.

My family all lives in Massachusetts, and I’ve lived apart from them, in California and Michigan and New York, for over half my life now. And right at the time when I was trying to figure out what brand and model of watch would define me, my dad made the choice for me—a non­mechanical timepiece from what was at the time a middling brand, worth a couple hundred bucks on eBay. I basically haven’t taken it off since. It reminds me of my family every time I look at it, and there’s not another watch in the world at any price that can pull off that trick.

“The watch reminds me of my family every time I look at it, and there’s not another watch in the world at any price that can pull off that trick.

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