After nearly a decade of not wearing a wristwatch, I finally bought one.

 

It’s not that I have an issue with wearing a watch, though I do wish watchmakers would consider those of us who are left-handed and would make more watches with knobs on the left side of the face so they don’t fray our shirt cuffs when we wear them on our right wrists.

 

My decision not to wear a watch was a statement of protest, sort of like when I started growing a beard 3 ½ decades ago as a protest against a Survivor-style, win-at-all-costs management selection program staged by a newspaper group for which I worked.

 

I won’t go into the details of why I’ve had a naked right wrist for nearly 10 years. I’ll simply tell you why I bought the watch I did: I bought it because I finally found a watch I liked, and that I considered affordable.

 

Every so often, AutoWeek, the magazine where I worked for a dozen years after leaving that newspaper group, publishes a story about the latest in watches the editors think should appeal to car guys. Usually, those watches are way too complicated or way to expensive for my tastes, and I’m not sure I see the relationship between buying cars and buying watches in the first place, other than the fact that car designers tend to be wristwatch freaks.

 

Anyway, I was bemoaning the magazine devoting several pages to wristwatches instead of stories about cars and the people who design, develop or drive them as I was working my way through the pages when I noticed a full-page advertisement for a watch that really did seem to have an automotive relationship, or at least an automotive inspiration, yet was not included in the editors’ article.

 

The watch was called the 1930 Dashtronic. Instead of the usual clock face, it looked like some of the speedometers and other gauges I’d seen in early concept cars and in vintage aircraft. Instead of the usual hands spinning around a traditional clock face, the Dashtronic is a “jump hour” watch: A curved window is cut into its brushed metallic face. Through the window, you see numbers on two discs. The inner, hour disc rotates every 12 hours; the outer, minute disc rotates once each hour. You simply look through the window to read the time.

 

I really liked the look of the watch, probably because it looked more like a vintage gauge than a watch. It was a bonus to learn that the 1930 Dashtronic cost $99 (plus shipping), had a 21-jewel automatic movement (no winding!) and was water-resistant to three atmospheres. (By the way, does anyone other than James Bond really plunge into a river – or a bath tub for that matter – while wearing a watch?)

 

The 1930 Dashtronic is sold by Stauer, a watch and jewelry company based in Burnsville, Minnesota, and, according to the company’s website, those in charge are descended “from a long line of watch collectors, historians and craftsmen.”

 

I think that long line of watch collectors, historians and craftsman would be proud of their descendents. I know I’m proud of my 1930 Dashtronic. I also know that such an endorsement may not be worth much, and that technically it’s really worth only $99 plus shipping. But, after all, like beauty, worth is in the eye (or in this case, the wrist) of the beholder.