Recording History: No Page Unturned
When you give yourself the title of “Number one resource for Timex history and knowledge in online”, you kind of have to commit. One of the many ways that mission has manifested itself this past year, is the meticulous cataloging of decades worth of Timex dealer sell sheets and brochures. I wanted to bring a more comprehensive look at the brand and most of the pieces that came about during all these years. Today I want to officially take that project live for the first time, and give you a little bit of the background behind the year long endeavor.
Shortly after I first began collecting vintage Timex several years ago, I was very fortunate to stumble upon a wonderful resource packed with Timex repair catalogs (the same you now see on this site), various sell sheets, parts sheets, and other random pieces of Timex history. It was a treasure trove of knowledge to me as a relatively new collector, and I am eternally grateful to the person from an earlier vintage Timex forum who put it all together in one place. I don’t think they knew the kind of impact simple files could have on future collectors. Many of these documents, ads, and catalogs can now be found strewn about the internet, including being archived on Facebook groups and forums dedicated to Timex collecting. The biggest issue with these documents are they are simply incomplete or are in very pour shape. This often makes it difficult, as a collector or general enthusiast, to easily find the information needed. For me this was an immediate issue, especially when it comes to the mission of this site to be as complete, and high quality as possible. So in 2021, before I even launched the site in May, I decided to do something about it.
It started by simply scouring various auction sites to see if I could buy the original versions of each sell sheet and catalog. I found some luck in this early on, but still had massive gaps. And although I did not expect to have every year covered in this site (1949-2000) to be represented on launch, I did want to have as much as possible. So the next step was to turn to fellow collectors who were willing to share material that they had in their own collections. Over the course of the year, people sent me material from around the US, Norway, the UK, and even Japan. I spent a lot of time with this material and had most of it ready in early January of this year. Then spectacularly, in the 11th hour an anonymous source provided me with nearly four hundred pages of information that neither I or anyone I know in the collector community owns. Only a fraction of what you see here today is actually owned by me, and I am eternally grateful to the community that is willing to contribute so visitors of this site can have a more complete experience.
I needed these to be in the best possible shape, as the goal is to have these be useful to collectors for decades to come. After spending most of the year (and enough money to buy a luxury watch) looking for the scanners and equipment, I finally settled on the methods I was most satisfied with and got to digitizing. Then came the tedious part, where most of the hours came in. Each page you see on the site (including those yet to be posted as of this article’s writing), has been carefully combed over and digitally cleaned and restored to the best of my ability, while still trying to maintain as much of the character of these old pages as possible. I straitened, color corrected, removed hand written notes, and sometimes went as far as filling in missing text.
The final results are something I am very proud of and hope that many vintage Timex collectors and enthusiasts will find useful for years to come. These pages tell a highly detailed story of what is (obviously) my favorite watch brand, and an important piece of American history.
A special thank you to Knut-Even Olsen (Norway), Mark Rushworth (UK), James Edgington (UK), Jersey Mo (US), Scott Hawkins (US), Alan Nazerian, and Eddie (Japan), and more for sharing the materials that have made up this new section. You can now find it here.
