Something Old, Something New (kinda new anyway)
Without going into too much detail, this Tudor Oyster (case by Rolex) watch has been in the water in 2 oceans and 3 seas, and it was on my wrist as I ran many thousands of rounds through a few M-60s. Later on, it was on my wrist as I ran thousands of rounds through various big game rifles, and
tens of thousands of rounds through dozens of different large bore handguns. It still works.
In fairness though, I haven’t worn it much in the last 40 years or so, and hardly at all during my 30+ working years. The electromagnetic fields surrounding the high-amperage bus bars I often worked around would ruin
any watch in short order.
One other thing that could have ruined my Tudor Oyster watch in 1971 (about a year after I got it) was shorting its band across the ammeter terminals in my classic ’55 T-Bird. I was installing an 8-track (remember those?) in my T-Bird, and I was reaching up underneath the dash when I managed to short-out the car’s ammeter terminals with my watchband. Which in turn, spot-welded the band’s clasp shut, and it got
real HOT,
real FAST! Amongst a shower of sparks, I yanked my arm out of there of course, but I couldn’t get the band’s clasp undone because of the spot-weld. So I grabbed the band with my other hand and tried to break it. It blistered all 4 fingers on
that hand. While yelling and dancing around, I managed to pull my shirt off and run it down my arm to tuck under my watchband until it cooled.
Anyway, I had 2nd and 3rd degree burns all the way around my left wrist (which left me with a wrist-watch like scar for many years) and 2nd degree burns on my fingers on my right hand. However, the watch itself was okay, and except for a few arc-weld spots, the band was okay too once I broke the welds loose. The band finally gave out a few years back though, and I need to replace it.
I can’t. Genuine Rolex bands are terrible expensive (a lot more than I paid for the whole danged watch in 1970) and there’s just too many sentimental things about those arc-weld spots on that old watchband. I was still wearing a bandage around my left wrist when I asked my wife to marry me in May of 1971, and even if I have to tape the band together, I’ll be wearing my Tudor Oyster watch when we celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary next June.