With the increasing use of smartphones, a watch doesn’t seem to be an item the young have much time for (excuse the pun) – everything they need or seem to need is on the phone. In fact when I was visiting a sports centre recently I doubt if I saw a proper watch on a wrist of any of the kids there – but they were instead virtually surgically attached to their smartphones and I wondered if they were unlucky enough to have an injured thumb – well I don’t know how they’d survive the day. I mean if they’re not texting, like, they gotta be dead right?
Now I did see a few wrist accessories of some kind, but very few were watches as such, most being simple bracelets and wrist decoration of some kind. Actually quite a few were strings, leather straps and thin ropes – quite ethnic really.
However on closer inspection I did find out that a few, a very few had watches after all. Not that timekeeping was the core function of wearing them, because they were the simplest of quartz watches, costing perhaps at most a £10 note maybe. These were basically for novelty value or perhaps promotional items and most with printed pictures on the dial.
Simple round cases and as said, a printed dial usually with hour, minute and seconds hand (I was surprised they had seconds ). Usually the printed image or sign was something catchy – in other words what I call ‘novelty
wrist wear’, that co-incidentally told the time, though I did find one that was made of wood with fixed painted hands – so time was not of the essence there!
Now this is not the preserve of the young and I too have a novelty watch, I wear sometimes just for fun.
Mine is a Wallace & Gromit watch, from the short animated films fame. Why? well I just love the films and I’ve even got a bow tie to match! Silly I know but at my age, at the other end of the spectrum, I can get away with it.
So here’s a couple of these novelty watches I like the look of – purely as decorative items, but these ones do tell the time.
I particularly like the Mergic “Cat” watch, basically as it’s such a clear dial and with the high color straps really looks pretty cool – I understand that’s what the young set want – to look cool I mean.
As the norm mostly all these types of watch are produced in huge quantities in China, but what’s new – even the mainstream watches if not made completely in China tend to dominate the supply of quartz movements today, whatever the Brand of watch.
My Wallace & Gromit watch even comes in it’s own bespoke aluminium hinged box, made by WESCO of China for the BBC who license it and this model (there are several) is commemorating the animated film called “A Close Shave”. It features a leather strap with the Wallace & Gromit text embossed on it, so this is original – I particularly like the blue stitching – hey this is a class act! 😉
The cost? well around £10-£12, though I’ve seen one or two at auction for silly prices upwards of £40! And no they are NOT worth that kind of money at all – not for simple novelty – but they are fun to wear if you like them.
Watch space 