Growing up watches were not really something I thought about. As a kid and all the way through college, some outside reference of time like a clock had always felt accessible. And if it wasn’t, I probably didn’t need to know or care to know the time. (In retrospect, many of my friends, family, and college teammates might have appreciated me finding my watch interests at a younger age as I was almost always late, but I digress.)
My mid-20s found me in a few placeholder jobs with quite a bit of downtime, and that time was quickly filled perusing gear and watch sites, among them Uncrate, A Continuous Lean, and Watchuseek. Curiosity quickly bloomed into fascination, which developed into obsession—a trajectory I’m sure many a watch lover can relate to. I’ve always been predisposed to hobbies and interests with a mechanical bent—from taking apart broken appliances to working on boats and Go-Karts—so naturally watches quickly became a fixation. That coupled with a lifelong interest in military history (for a time I majored in Civil War history), I gravitated toward military watches from the likes of Waltham, Hamilton, Smiths, Rolex, IWC, Omega, and so on.