In July when the USA observes its 250th birthday, my Seiko watch (see photo) will also reach a milestone—50 years under my ownership. Following a recent cleaning and servicing, it’s keeping accurate time again. Will it last another 50 years? If it does, I won’t be around to see it, but hopefully a younger family member will.
According to some detective work I did on the Internet, the watch is a vintage Seiko SQ 4004 model from the 1970s, powered by Seiko’s early 0903 quartz movement. The first two digits of its serial number (57) are the year (but not the decade) and month of manufacture. Given that my parents gave it to me on my birthday in 1976, that means the watch was made in July 1975. They got it at the Navy Exchange at the Naval Air Station in Miramar, California.
I wore the watch daily while I was working. Its most important duty was to help me rarely miss a ferry when I was commuting from Bremerton to Redmond during the 1990s. After I retired, I tossed it in a drawer and only got it out when I traveled or to wind it forward at the end of the shorter months to keep the calendar accurate. When my cell phone took over as my de facto timepiece a few years ago, the watch was no longer needed. Ignored, without a mission and absent any love from its owner, it stopped running. Or perhaps the real cause was a dead battery.
Fast forward to the “spring ahead” drill last month. After setting the rest of the numerous clocks in my life, I thought about the watch and wondered if a new battery would restore it to life for its upcoming Golden anniversary. As if it were going to be that easy. Instead, it took some great work by a patient watch-repair wizard named Alberto to make it so.
First, he installed a new battery. The watch ran for a few hours and then stopped. Next, he cleaned and serviced it. The watch started up again and ran for about day this time. Then it quit again. I don’t know what Alberto did on the third visit, but he wasn’t discouraged. He said something about “a gear.” I’m not sure if he adjusted the gear or replaced it. That was apparently what it needed. So, three trips in all to Silverdale Jewelry & Coin. Not bad for a 50-year-old watch that hadn’t run in at least a decade.
In reading up on how watch-wearing habits have changed in the cell-phone era, I learned two things. First, people still like wearing watches, but many are smartwatches that are more likely to be doing duty as communication devices and exercise monitors, than simply telling you what time it is. Second, high end watches are popular, but the reason for wearing them is more to make a fashion or status statement than to help the owner be on time (or purposely late) for their next appointment. That might be why I notice so many expensive-looking watches when I’m watching important people being interviewed on TV.
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