Tradition divers, though less expensive than several of their contemporaries, shared much of the same DNA that makes a skin diver a skin diver: rotating friction bezel, slim case profile, straight lugs, and a tropic or other rubber dive strap. It wasn’t until the 1960s that Tradition started making dive watches, I assume to follow the tool watch trend started by houses like Blancpain and Rolex. Sears began selling Tradition dress watches, for both men and women, starting around the mid-1950s. Since I started with divers, I’m going to stay with those for Sears in the interest of brevity. Sears carried most of the important American watch brands (Bulova, Hamilton, Elgin, and Gruen specifically) from at least the 1940’s onward and, while there were other Sears-specific store watches sold during the same period such as Tower and Cortebert, it’s impossible to cover all the different models in one article and give them due diligence.
Then, there are innumerable less recognizable and completely no-name brands that come up even more often, brands like Douglas (a sister brand of Wolbrook), Helbros, LeJour, Jenny and, of course, Tradition. On one side of the spectrum, you have pieces like the Universal Geneve Polerouter Sub (:drool:) and vintage Longines divers: gorgeous, but out of the broke watch snob’s price range. After poking around eBay and getting the lay of the land, you start to familiarize yourself with watches from certain brands that come up for sale often. Sure, they don’t have the water-resistance or depth rating (especially vintage ones!) of traditional deep dive watches but, man, they’re just so cool (and it doesn’t hurt to have a diver that fits under your cuff). My interest in store-branded watches started when I was on a hunt for vintage skin divers online. Really, should we expect much more than this from the selection of watches at a catch-all department store? I, for one, think it’s a reasonable expectation and find it a great privilege that, even in the most commercial of commercial, non-boutique, non-watch-centered establishments (brick and mortar or online) I can still walk in (or log on) and find a Timex or a Casio (or even a Seiko!), watches that we obsessives consider solid any day, any time.īut what era of store watches are we in currently and is it anything like it once was? Perhaps looking a bit at some of the histories of store brands will give the reader an idea of the state of affairs today and how we’ve gotten here. To most folks there are probably three questions that are important to be answered in the affirmative:Ģ.) Will the battery last a long time before I have to change it? It’s really those who are into this hobby that quibble and squabble about quality, country of manufacture, brand history, etc., etc. The so-called “fashion brands” seem to get the job done for most people most of the time. How many other respectable brands are so accessible to the vast majority of people who walk through the door? You might not find the most exciting or established models of either of these brands when you walk into Target, but you can leave twenty or thirty dollars poorer with a handsome new timepiece that can likely “take a lickin’.” CREDIT: As a matter of fact, what’s great about Timex and Casio is that you can still walk into any department store and find a reasonable selection of each, two more than respectable brands with interesting backstories, for a reasonable price. I argue that Timex and Casio don’t fall under this category because of the history of the former and the contributions to horology of the latter (though Timex has had its own breakthroughs). What these brands have in common (and which I assert Timex and Casio do not) is form over function, fashion rather than quality, looks versus provenance.
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