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Editorial My First Watch

Or, the story of my grandfather's forgotten Submariner.

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Our watches will outlive us. It’s part of the magic that flows through collecting, owning and passing them down. I have had my first watch for 17 years, but it had a life of its own that spanned some 35 years before we were ever acquainted. My watch was lost before I found it, forgotten, abandoned, and left for dead. This is the story of my first watch – how it came to be in my life and why it will never leave it.

Now this one is a bit tricky. When I say my first watch, I mean this much more in the metaphorical sense of the term. My literal first watch? It had to be a Shark Freestyle watch with a velcro strap. I would play endlessly with the glow button from my twin bed as a child. It illuminated both my bedroom and my imagination. 

But this article is not about that watch, and it really isn’t about one watch. Rather, it's about connections – the through lines that track the passage of time through memory and experience. Some of the memories I plan to invoke in this piece are sad, but I carry them with me as reminders of someone I lost who was very important to me. That person was my grandfather. Through him, I present to you, my first watch.


A Bit of Backstory

Before I go any further about myself, or my watch, I think it best to introduce another character in this story: my grandfather, Harry J. Milton. Born in 1909, he lived a fascinating life. I recall a story of how his mother took him and his siblings back to the "old country" on a trip in 1912. They were set to return to the states with tickets aboard the newest flagship ocean-liner … the Titanic. Luckily for me, they decided to change their plans last minute and took a less glamorous ship home.

Harry Milton was a grown man during the Great Depression and a star tennis player from Duquesne University (he played tennis until he was 88 years old). In 1940, he was one of the winners in a contest to rename the then-Pittsburgh Pirates professional football team. His winning submission? The Pittsburgh Steelers. The prize was two season tickets for the 1940 season. That's it.

His was the first draft number called in the United States for World War II. Interestingly, given his age and the fact he was married, he was deemed exempt from service. No matter – at age-31, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in India and Burma during the war. Shortly after the war ended, he joined the State Department as a Foreign Service office FSO3, and my father was born. From there, he took his family around the world. They lived at times in New Delhi, Athens, Paris, and Nigeria. My dad’s high school prom was in the Eiffel Tower, so you can imagine how I felt when I showed up to mine in the local town hotel.

This photo of my grandfather, Harry J.Milton, was taken at Camp Ritchie, a military training facility during WWII.

This article published in 1974 profiled my grandfather and his part in naming the Pittsburgh Steelers. (Article: Pittsburgh Post Gazette).

I always knew my grandfather to be a sweet man, but he was also a serious man. He was a storyteller, but in his own quiet way. I knew he had lived a truly exceptional life all over the world, and he had likely seen a great many things. He lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, and 9/11. 

Now, I was nothing if not a curious child. If I wasn't playing with action figures, you could find me deep in boxes in our storage room or attic looking through old pictures or newspaper clippings – you name it. When I was 12, I actually filmed myself interviewing my grandfather about his life and our family history on our camcorder. I never realized then how important that would be to our family as a document. We often don’t realize how much we lose when we lose someone until they are gone.

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I loved my grandfather, and the day he passed away is a day I will never forget. It was December 14, 2002. He was 93 years old. We received the news after leaving a party at a family friend's house. We rushed to the hospital, but we were told that it was too late. I just remember a doctor bringing us in the room and my dad taking my grandfather's watch off of his wrist. Tears streaming from his face, he turned to me, took my hand, and put the watch on me. It was a simple Timex quartz watch in a gold tone with a white face and ornate Arabic numerals on the dial. A little wave motif adorned the dial to reflect its water resistance. It was affixed to a black Speidel leather strap with matching gold-toned buckle. 

My grandfather wore this watch for one reason: He could read it. His eyesight had gotten worse over time, and some of his more expensive watches simply wouldn't cut it any longer. I sat somberly, wearing it through the night and in the days that followed. But, this article is not about that watch – not exactly, at least.


Seeing Double

It came time for my dad and me to go through my grandfather's things and to clean out his apartment. The curious boy in me couldn't figure out where to start. I was collecting old photographs, sifting through old knick-knacks and boxes of 8mm home movies. These were the types of artifacts that sent me down many a rabbit hole. I was no good at this – I wasn’t packing anything up.

I made my way to my grandfather's bedside nightstand and opened the bottom drawer. Not much to look at there, I thought to myself. But then, I saw what looked like a watch sitting there at the back of the drawer. I picked it up and quite literally dusted it off. I didn’t know what it was. It was a stainless steel watch, and it was on a bracelet. I turned it over and examined the clasp. I recognized it to be the Rolex Oyster shell. I turned it back over again. The watch had no bezel, but it looked like it should have. The crystal was so scratched and foggy, and the dial rusted over, it was almost impossible to make out anything. I looked closer, and I brought it to the window to get more light. Then I started to see. Amidst the heavy water damage to the dial, I could make out the Rolex coronet, and I could start to see some of the hour markers, the large circles and rectangles as I liked to describe them back then.

I knew this watch. I knew it because my dad had one just like it, and I had been obsessed with it since childhood. I have vivid memories of my father and his Submariner, a matte dial 5513 from 1982. I would gaze at the watch on his wrist, the white from those circles and rectangles and the triangle at the top always caught my eye. When he would take it off, I would put it on. I knew Rolex from a young age, and I knew from that watch.

My dad's 1982 5513 Submariner

My watch (left) and my dad's 1982 5513 Submariner (right)

Holding the watch I found in my grandfather's bedside drawer in my hand, confusion overcame me. This wasn’t right – where was the bezel? Is this the same watch? I jumped up and ran to my father, showing him my discovery. He couldn’t believe it. He knew nothing of it, had never seen my grandfather wear it, and never knew it even existed. My grandfather's mystique grew even after his passing.

In the years since, I have been able to do a bit of detective work into the history of this mystery watch. In 1968, my grandfather left Nigeria to return to Washington D.C. as he was nearing retirement from the Foreign Service. He made a stop in Stuttgart, Germany, where he bought a 1969 model year Mercedes 250 – black with red interior – which he had shipped back to the States (with his government discount, the car cost a mere $5,000). My family believes that he next went to Geneva, where he picked up two watches. The first was a two-tone Rolex Datejust 1601 with a champagne dial, which he gifted to my father upon his college graduation. The second was this very watch. Just like my dad's, this too is a 5513 Rolex Submariner. By the serial number, the particular model dates to 1967 and, if it were in original condition, would likely be a meters-first matte dial model. In 2002, sitting in my grandfather's bedroom, none of this was known to me. 


The Revival

What happens next in this story may upset some, may truly anger others, and runs in opposition to all good conscience by current collecting standards. Before everyone piles on, please remember this was nearly 20 years ago. The number one resource at the time for laypeople was Rolex themselves. I was too young to have been on the forums, and if I asked my dad about a forum he would’ve thought I was talking about a Lakers game or something out of Roman history. Let's just say watch scholarship here was thin.

All of that notwithstanding, my father took the watch I had unearthed and made a phone call to Rolex. Their recommendation was, as you might expect, "the works." The dial – unreadable, corroded, and water damaged – needed to be replaced. The watch, with its missing bezel, would be given a replacement. The hands, in similar condition to the dial, would also need replacing, as would the crown, bracelet, clasp, and crystal. The movement would also be fully serviced. I have to believe something was done with the case as well … I'm sure (cover your ears) that it was polished. 

Ok, I’m glad we got that out of the way. 

Sometime in the spring of 2003, my father came up to me as I was likely recreating some scene from Star Wars with action figures in my bedroom and showed me a green and gold box with the words "Rolex Service Division" written on it. We sat down on the bed. Inside that box was a green velvet pouch, buttoned closed. We opened it together and pulled out the watch.

My watch atop the service box it came in 17 years ago.

It was a shocking moment, and I mean that in the most positive sense of the word. In my hands was, effectively, a brand new watch. The markers on the watch were smaller, applied with white-gold surrounds instead of painted. The dial was a dark glossy black as opposed to matte. The text on the dial where it read "Submariner/660ft = 200m" was noticeably smaller (and, of course, feet first). Down at the bottom of the dial, it simply read "Swiss." The bracelet and clasp as I found it in that drawer were different. It originally bore the single locking clasp with the oyster shell fastener. This new bracelet was exactly the same as my dad’s, as was the clasp with the now-signature double locking clasp.

I remember looking at the watch for a long time and then looking back up at my dad. I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but he told me, in that moment, that the watch was mine. He knew how much I loved his watch and how much I loved my grandfather. This was my first watch. 

My dad was proud that he had taken what was a lost treasure, beaten and battered with age and apparent neglect, and resurrected it to as new a form as possible. Sure, it didn’t look anything like it used to, but it was still something to behold. I tried it on and had this overwhelming connection run through me. The watch felt much bigger than me in many ways, but also, it was mine. I would take care of it, I would wear it, and I would cherish it.


My Watch and I

One of my first memories with my Submariner was learning that the lume on the watch worked, unlike my dad's. Memories of my Shark watch came back to me. You see, in the restoration process, the dial was refitted with Super-LumiNova-filled markers, as opposed to the tritium which previously adorned it. As time went on, I would brag about this quite a bit to my dad, often telling him my watch was superior because of this.

Then something happened. Call it being a teenager, I don’t know, but I suddenly became aware of the true weight of my watch when faced with the prospect of wearing it out in public. I was 14 or 15 years old. Did I want to be the kid that everyone poked fun at for wearing a Rolex? I loved my first real watch and everything it represented, and I continued to carry with me my grandfather's memory. But for some reason, I couldn’t wear it. I don’t know if anyone else ever faced a similar conundrum, but it certainly happened to me. I remember putting the watch in a Persol sunglasses case and placing it, of all places, in the drawer of my nightstand next to my bed. There it sat, the movement frozen in the dark, as it had for so many years before.

When you're a teenager, life truly is a slow-moving thing. A year can feel like a decade, two years like a lifetime. I was 17 when I reached back out for my first watch. I don't know how or why, but something inside told me I was ready to wear it. The watch still felt bigger than me, but I was now up to the task of it. I wore it to school, I wore it on dates, and I wore it around my dad – the two of us and our Submariners. Mine was superior, of course. I remember being in a rock band in high school, and we performed at the school carnival. I was a drummer at the time and, for our big performance, I had this watch on my wrist. I was starting to build my own memories.

I have had 17 years with my watch now. 

Who knows what happened to this watch that made it look the way that it did when I found it. Back when I interviewed my grandfather about our family history, sadly the topic of this Submariner never came up. There was no reason for me to ask because I had no idea it existed.

Sometimes in life, the mystery is half the fun, and the true answers may only disappoint us. I don’t know where this watch was before I found it, the life it truly led. My grandfather knew. The watch had been around the globe and back before being tucked away, not heard from for years until a curious young boy brought it back into the world.

Despite any naysaying, I maintain that I hold in my hand a watch that was made anew when it was passed on to me. As a kid, I often thought of it in the way a modern collector thinks of a piece unique. I know now that this isn't the case, but I used to think of it as a watch Rolex rebuilt just for me, and I loved that. It's a watch that had thousands of adventures before me and a watch that I don't have to think twice about before jumping in the water, going on a hike, or even smashing the cymbals on a drum set.

I still look at my grandfather's Timex sometimes, and I put it on to remember him. Memories of the painful evening when it was strapped to my wrist all those years ago come back in waves. Then I look at my Submariner and see the story that connects them both. More than that, I see the role I played in that story. It's easy to lose sight of what makes something special. You get deep into this watch world and hear the murmurings of how ubiquitous a Submariner is – how everyone has one. But hey, not this one. This one is mine, and this one is special.

This watch is never going anywhere. Its value can never be realized in dollars and cents. This is my first watch, and this is my memory watch. It reminds me of everything I love about watches and, someday, I will pass it on again to live another life of adventure. After all, isn't that what this is all about anyway?

Photos: Kasia Milton