When my Dad bought his Rolex Submariner 16610 to replace his 1601 Datejust, he certainly wasn’t expecting to give it to me half a decade later. In April 2000, I’d just turned 19, and was proudly wearing the Seiko Kinetic received a year before for my 18th birthday. The Datejust, my Dad thought, would make a perfect gift for when I turned 30—still a long way to go.
My father was not into watches but he appreciated things well made. He’d purchased his Datejust in the late 1960s, and wore it every single day since for almost four decades. Working, traveling, swimming, it was all with the DJ on his wrist—the only exception being a rare service interval.
With age though, he started to struggle telling time in certain lights due to the lack of contrast between the white gold hands and silver dial. A friend of his had the Sub, and my Dad kept commenting on how legible it was. He also thought the bezel could help him time intervals between intakes of a medical treatment he was under back then.
That’s how, on a business trip to Japan, he was not only fortunate to see the Sakura bloom and the Yen go through a temporary setback—sounds familiar?—but also to find the official retailer at Narita airport with one last Submariner Date in stock that day.
But after a few months of ownership, my Dad started complaining about the diver being too bulky for his wrist. Sometimes, it would remain stuck under his cuff, and I remember him making exaggerated gestures with his left arm to pull it out. He also once banged it on a door knob, right in front of me. We were both convinced the watch would be shattered; while the door knob ended up being the only casualty, the slight dent near the 20 on the Sub’s bezel remains its most visible trace of wear, a quarter of a century later. But really, while he would’t admit it, I suspect the watch was just a bit too sporty, a bit too outgoing for his tweedy style, not blending in his professional environment among Parisian writers and publishers.
At the family Christmas dinner in December 2001, I noticed a new watch on my Dad’s wrist. It looked like a Datejust, but with a black dial.
“Dad, when did you get this?” I asked.
“Get what?” he responded, aloofly.
“The watch…”
“How many times have I told you this? 1966…”
Earlier that year, my Dad, born in 1931, had just turned 70. He wasn’t that old but his response made me freak out. How could he not realize this was not the same DJ he had uninterruptedly worn for 35 years?
“Dad… I gently tried… Your 1966 Datejust has a white dial.”
“You mean it had, Alex. It had. You asked me about the watch, not the dial!”
I can’t remember if I wanted to strangle him or hug him, probably a bit of both, but the relief that he had not lost his mind was infinitely more memorable than any Christmas gift I received that year. It turned out that, now that his medical treatment was over—another piece of great news—he simply had the dial swapped for better legibility. The Sub was at the vault. And, as tightly kept, my hopes that, instead of the DJ, it would be mine nine years later.
I moved to Senegal in 2003. The country ended up being home to me for over eight years. I was setting up a business there and money was tight. I couldn’t afford to travel back to Paris as often as I wanted. My father had made the trip once but, as much as he enjoyed the destination, the journey was tiring for him. We spoke often on the phone but remember, back then, things weren’t as seamless as today with smartphones, the internet and free communications.
My family wanted to do something special for my 25th birthday. While inconvenient for me financially, I saved up to be back in Paris for the occasion. After a fairly exhausting flight due to a five hour delay in Casablanca, I barely made it on time for the meal where literally every relative alive on my father’s side of the family was around the table. There’s not that many of us, maybe a dozen in total, but it was a truly wonderful moment—the last one we’d ever share altogether.
After I blew my candles and opened a few gifts, my father told me to meet him in the kitchen.
“I too have a little something for you. You live closer to the ocean that I do, so you should have this.”
I was speechless. Not only did I never expect to receive the Sub so early in my life, but the contrast between its value, my own financial challenges and, more importantly, the abyssal levels of poverty that often surrounded me in Africa were too much for my mind to compute. I was full of joy and gratitude but also somewhat uneasy and embarrassed. My Dad, who knew me in and out, was immediately able to tell.
“I know this comes with mixed feelings for you. And that’s precisely why I want you to have. You see, I think you have pretty decent values. You’ll know this watch doesn’t make you better than anyone else. But it’s a good watch, and hopefully it’ll make you think of me. Most importantly, it’s just a watch. Especially when you’re on the other side of the world, I want you to have something that, in case of a serious emergency, you can easily liquidate. That’s what a Submariner does best.”
This time, I just wanted to hug him. It’s what I did, with a few tears on his shoulder.
So here we are. Twenty years later. A dozen weddings, including mine, a few funerals, including my father’s, child births, home purchases, business deals, weekends escapes and international travel, sweaty home improvement and Michelin starred restaurants, you name it—I’ve done it all with the Sub. Along with the Speedy—my weekend watch— gifted by my wife, it’s the only timepiece I truly care about. Every dent is a memory. Every stretch of the bracelet echoes my pulse over the past two decades. Serviced just once, it still keeps perfect time, day in, day out. How more meaningful can a watch get?
Now, take another look at that wristshot above. It’s my wrist. It’s my watch. It was purchased in Tokyo in April 2000. But I need to tell you something, hoping you’ll forgive me once I explain why. Here we go.
My Dad never wore a watch. And if he had, it would certainly not have been a Rolex. He’s never been to Japan. And when I lived in Senegal, all I owned was a Swatch, and the occasional counterfeit Swiss watch. The 16610 you see was purchased from a reputable vintage dealer in Lausanne earlier this year.
Should any of this matter? Should it change your appreciation of the piece on my wrist? It’s exactly the same watch. It’s exactly the same wrist. Every atom in both of them are unchanged regardless of the story behind it. And yet, the watch has most likely suddenly lost most of its aura in your eyes. From a family heirloom and living memory of my father, it has now become a simple middle-age crisis.
This exercise was inspired by conversations with my good friend and author of Coronet Danny Crivello. Like many enthusiasts, we aspire to being a one-watch guy, envious of people who didn’t realize how good they had it with the same amazing piece on their wrist as a trusty, daily companion over the decades. We often wish our watch had a story like the one I just wrote.
But no, I’m just another obsessive watch nerd, feeding the addiction with new purchases and selling what I can’t afford to keep. And yet, after years of blaming myself for that, I’ve now come to terms with it. In fact, I kind of embrace it.
What I enjoy the most with watches is not so much the possession of the object itself but my experiences with it. In the one watch guy or gal paradigm, those experiences are about having the watch as a trusty companion day in, day out, year after year. In my mind though, it’s the novelty, the discovery, the shift in perspective and mindset that comes with constantly trying out everyday life with different takes on what a watch can be. Some people prefer going back to Venice every year. I’m more the type that wants to go discover some random industrial town instead, because I get more of a kick from shifting perspectives than I do from repeating the same pleasure.
Ever since I got into watches over 12 years ago, I’ve easily owned—and sold—over 100 pieces. When Danny asked me how I wanted my next 10 years of collecting to be, I instinctively responded: “another hundred, in and out.” I just don’t get very attached to objects. As obsessed as I can be about owning and experiencing them, it’s generally easy for me to let any of them go. This will sound cliché but really, all I’m attached to is people and how we connect.
So will my kids get that 16610 one day? While I’ve only had it for a few months, my desire for a five digit Submariner Date is actually decades old. Once I properly got into watches and could afford one, I ended up taking a side-step every time I was about to pick one up. Too boring, too basic, too seen. Iconic, sure, but equally predictable. So I went for quirky variants: a Hulk, a 14060, a Sea-Dweller, and so on.
Now that I have it, I have no idea how long it will stay. That’s precisely part of the enjoyment for me. And what about the kids? You know, the only thing related to watches I truly want to pass on to them is: don’t get too attached to objects.
Great article that got me thinking about my approach to watches