TImepieces have always attracted me whether wrist watches, pocket watches, mantle clocks, carriage clocks, grandfather clocks or Ship’s Bells. This morning, as is my habit, I inspected my collection of wrist watches secreted in my bedroom dresser drawer. Inadvertently I discovered that the Bulova pocket watch (quartz movement) had stopped. The battery needed to be replaced. If memory serves, I bought that watch on-line in 2018 when wintering on Daytona Beach Shores. It was at the time an unusual purchase because since my retirement from the practice of law in 2014 I hadn’t worn a waistcoat; which is to say, I no longer dressed for the office. By then my current apparel was, as it is now, distinctly casual and decidedly estranged from what was once of ardent sartorial appeal. Nonetheless the allure of the pocket watch hadn’t fully escaped me. Many years previously I had inherited two pocket watches from my paternal grandfather. One, a gold Pochelon et frères with 9K gold watch chain and (formerly) Masonic fob and (latterly) a swivel bloodstone fob with circular gold wreath (which I gave to my goddaughter); the other, a massive sterling silver piece with key for winding (which I sold to “Baker Bob” who operated his business immediately adjoining my own on the town square in Almonte at Little Bridge Street). The singular feature of the Bulova pocket watch was that the attached chain had at its open end a springloaded clip rather than the usual bar (which would have been inserted into and hidden behind a waistcoat button hole). The clip was clearly an accommodation of casual attire, enabling one to attach the chain to the waistline of one’s pants, with the watch descending into the pant pocket or hung into the small watch pocket instead of the waistcoat welt pocket. As a result my focus changed from appearance to performance. I suspect this upstart usage preceded my acquisition of an Apple Watch which since I have routinely used when bicycling (and which therefore trumps the enjoyment of other watches of any character). I will however report that the Apple Watch speaks to me primarily with a purely functional resonance from which I am inevitably redrawn to the historic chronographs.
The transition to Bulova watches was itself a novelty. I had owned watches and clocks of many different brands and varieties including Rolex, Cartier, Breitling, Tiffany, antique (French baroque), Longines, Birks, Elgin, Omega, Tag Heuer, Pequegnat, Chelsea, Seth Thomas, Sligh, Howard Miller, Seiko and Timex. When I learned to my dismay that the manufacture of the so-called high end watches (other than Rolex) was nothing but an assembly (often inaccurate) of pieces from other sources, my affection for those devices dissolved to little more than an assessment of their gold value (which I had already found from my consignment of gold jewellery was as you might expect far beneath its cultivated worth).
The Bulova brand, I had learned through variation and usage, was completely trustworthy. While the Bulova brand hadn’t the atmospheric allure of the shiny gold pieces (say, the Cartier Santos 100), it had an indisputable reliability and maintenance of stringency. In short, it spoke my language; for example, the Bulova Precisionist “Powered by Bulova’s proprietary Precisionist eight-hand quartz chronograph movement with a 262kHz vibrational frequency—eight times greater than standard timepieces—for unparalleled accuracy”.
Bulova was founded and incorporated as the J. Bulova Company in 1875 by Bohemian immigrant Joseph Bulova. It was reincorporated under the name Bulova Watch Company in 1923, became part of the Loews Corporation in 1979, and was sold to Citizen at the end of 2007. Fueled by the era’s risk-taking ethos, Joseph Bulova presented one innovation after the next. Ultimately opening a small store in downtown New York City that would mark the beginning of his lifelong quest: to craft supreme quality timepieces for an ever-changing and dynamic landscape.
And while I claim with assurance not to be bamboozled by appearances alone, I as readily confess many of the extraordinary chronographic capabilities of the watch are beyond my understanding and dialect. With the aid of the on-line manuals I content myself merely to direct and discern the uprightness of the hands and the staggering circular performances of the numerous hands upon the dial.
谢谢购买您新的Bulova手表。自1875年以来，Bulova特为迅速变化的世界提供优质设计， 以优越的技术提高獨特设计。您新的Bulova是以最精炼的材料和精确设计制作出來。以下页均是提供及指示关于怎样设置和保養您新的手表以保证多年準确報时。
What however is comprehensible is the serendipitous conversation I had today with Mr. Tom Burns of T. H. Burns Jewellers, Carleton Place when I arranged to meet him to restore three of my Bulova watches with new batteries (an engagement I am guessing we had last performed about a year ago or whatever other duration is commonly ascribed to the longevity of the batteries).
For our valued clients, we can change your watch battery or strap to our in-house selections. We stock a wide range of batteries and straps and can often do the work “while you wait”. Please pop-in to one of our locations and we’ll get you back on-time in a hurry. Burns Jewellers
The fortuity of today’s encounter was that, in deference to the sparsity of available parking spots on Bridge Street, Mr. Burns suffered me to access his business from the back door leading to his private office where I remained seated throughout the cellular surgery. While thus sequestered with stick in hand, I glanced about and commented upon an ancient safe reportedly one of four (though not of the same enormous size). This convention in turn sparked allusions of my own to the three safes I formerly had in my law office, one which R. A. Jamieson QC had inherited from his father (also a lawyer), a newer Goldie & McCullough I had inherited from Mr. Jamieson and one I had purchased from the Estate of Albert T. Gale. I subsequently commissioned Mr. Alan Pretty (who coincidentally is now a neighbour) to emboss my name in classic gold lettering upon the ancient safe of Mr. R. A. Jamieson’s father.
Thus animated in matters historic Mr. Burns shared with me that last year he celebrated 50 years in business. He began working in his father’s jewellery business in Perth when he was 14 years of age. His father had begun the business over 100 years ago; and, his grandfather had formerly been one of the lead watch repair technicians at Birks jewellers in Toronto.
We afterwards parenthetically shared other topics of local history including the nearby red stone home of the late Mrs. Annie Johnston on Bridge Street across the river from the Town Hall including my singularly odd connection thereto through my former boarding school colleague whose father (and subsequently esteemed senior physician of Shouldice private hospital in Thornhill, Ontario) had worked for Dr. Johnston upon arrival in Canada from England years earlier. It was also from Mrs. Annie Johnston that I purchased her Heintzman grand piano which had survived the December house fire by Mrs. Johnston pleading the firemen to remove the piano to the snow outside where out of an abundance of caution the firemen drenched it with water (causing the harp to split and which years later I hired the local Steinway dealer to recondition).
I also wandered further astrary to recall having worked for Mr. Drummond Birks when articling at Messrs. Macdonald, Affleck, 100 Sparks Street, Ottawa literally across the street from Birks Jewellers. It never surprises me that these accounts connect; but as always the profit from the beginning was entirley unanticipated.