In spring of 2021, I did some research on wristwatches to buy a very practical, reliable, and inexpensive watch as a gift for a dear one who is a licensed EMT, works as a medical assistant, and graduating from a college fire academy. I also happened to be reading Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being (2013), in which a wristwatch plays an important part. So, I dug into that too. This is the watch from the book: the Seikosha Tensoku.

Since that spring and buying that gift (a Timex), researching watches has become something of a distraction or escape from thinking and reading about other things. I find the mechanisms, the designs, the history, the stories about collecting, etc. all to be pretty fascinating. I have no plans to buy a watch, I have never really worn one, I don’t wear any jewelry either, and I don’t really want to carry time on me. (Predating all this watch research, I thought about the construct of time a bit too.)

This collection is kind of a mess, but it contains watch photos and articles that have for one reason or another caught my eye. Some ~preferences/interests are: uncluttered but not bare dials, California dials, numerals in radial layout, no date, time only, modding, repair.