Here at Times Ticking we love hearing the stories behind our customer’s watches. Tony’s story is one of those. Tony is 63 and living in Florida. This is the story of how he grew to love Donald Duck. His story begins in Michigan when he was 17 years old. He needed to take his driving test but did not have a car to get there. He called his good friend Kathy and asked if she could drive him to his test. She agreed.
Once they got to the DMV, Tony pulled out his Donald The Duck watch. He had brought the watch so he wouldn’t miss his appointment. When it was time for his driving test, he asked Kathy to hold on to it. His watch was a children’s watch, so the band didn’t fit on his wrist. He would have brought his Bulova watch, but it had just been stolen out of his school locker. He took his test in an old Ford stuhrling station wagon and passed! He forgot to ask Kathy for his Donald watch back and didn’t realize his watch was gone until it was too late. He had moved 30 miles away and had lost touch with Kathy. He resigned himself to thinking he would never see his watch again.
Donald Duck was introduced to the world in 1934 when he appeared in a cartoon short called “The Wise Little Hen.” The cartoon showed Donald Duck dancing to the Sailor’s Hornpipe. Donald and his friend Peter Pig tried to avoid working by faking stomach aches until Mrs. Hen taught them the value of labor. His second appearance was in Orphan’s Benefit, which is where he became a tempered comic to mess with Mickey Mouse. Since then he has appeared in over 150 films.
Fast-forward to 40 years later as Tony was scrolling through Facebook. He noticed that Kathy was friends with his sister and reached out to her. As they caught up, he asked Kathy what she did with his Donald watch. She told Tony that she didn’t know what he was talking about. He recollected the day to Kathy when she drove him to the DMV. Kathy said she remembered the day but didn’t remember his watch. He thought “Did she have it and didn’t want to give it back?” How was he to know?
Tony felt frustrated with his conversation with Kathy. This is when he decided that maybe someday somehow, he could find his exact Donald watch. He started to buy several Donald Duck watches, trying to find his Donald watch. It soon evolved into an obsession.
Over the decades there have been five main manufacturers of the Donald Duck watch. In 1935 Ingersoll made the first Donald Duck watch. Donald was shown holding blue and red semaphore flags for the hands. It is the rarest watch in the collection. They sold over 25 million Donald watches by 1957. It was also around this time that U.S. Time started producing Donald watches. Like Ingersoll’s design, Donald’s hands were used to tell the time. The dial had red numerals and minute markers, a cute drawing of Donald and copyright markings of Walt Disney Productions. By 1968 Timex started coming out with character watches for Disney. Then in 1972 Bradley took over the Disney Watch Brand. And in 1985 Lorus/Seiko took over the production process. Now you can find Disney watches almost anywhere in many brands
Tony had no idea how many different Donald watches had been manufactured until he started searching for his lost watch. He discovered that in 1946 the watches were usually rectangular, but by 1948 they started to be circular. There are so many designs for the Donald Duck watch that Tony realized he could never find the exact one he had all those years ago. After all these years, he has his own Donald Duck watch collection growing every time he finds another masterpiece. Tony admires Donald because he has a temper, a great personality and was in the navy. Even though he no longer has his first Donald watch, Tony has fallen in love with Donald Duck and his amazing line of watches.
