What I Learned Searching for the Watches I Wore as a Kid by Leighton Hart

The eBay listing had been up for three days when I found it. A Swiss Army watch with an Eddie Bauer logo, banged-up case, and worn leather strap. Someone’s castoff. My childhood. I clicked ‘Buy It Now’ before I could talk myself out of it.

I love watches, but I’ve never thought of myself as a collector in the traditional sense. I tend to think of the watches I own as markers of moments in my life.

Over the last few years, I realized that if my watch collection is a book, the early chapters were missing. The watches I wore growing up – the ones that helped inform my idea of style – had long since slipped away. So I set out to find them again.

The Eddie Bauer Swiss Army Watch

The first chapter was a Swiss Army watch my dad bought me from the Eddie Bauer store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

Back then, Eddie Bauer felt rugged and outdoorsy, and that watch matched perfectly. I picked it up in high school and it became my constant companion through everything: two trips to Philmont Scout Ranch, sweaty pickup basketball in the Tampa humidity, late nights studying in the Presbyterian College library. I can still remember the dirt “tan line” it left on my wrist. When I went looking years later, nothing quite matched. Wenger had gone more upscale, and Eddie Bauer didn’t sell it anymore.

I spent years digging through cases full of cast-off watches at antique stores. I’d periodically search eBay with no luck. Then one day, there it was: the exact model, sitting in someone’s forgotten collection.

I bought it instantly, then stalked my mailbox until delivery.

The day it arrived, I was way too excited for a grown man waiting on a decades-old watch. But opening that package felt like opening a time capsule.

The Black-and-White Swatch

The second chapter was a Swatch. In the 80s, Swatch was everywhere, complete with bold colors and loud designs. My parents weren’t into the neon look, so they went with a compromise: a simple black-and-white model. Understated, but still part of the moment.

I wore that Swatch through middle school, and it took a beating. It’s the first watch I ever tinkered with — I learned how to change the strap and replace the battery. I even had a Swatch guard (remember those?) to keep the acrylic crystal from getting scratched up.

A few years ago, I was scanning the Swatch site looking for a Moonswatch when I stumbled upon something unexpected: a modern version of my old black-and-white Swatch called the Twice Again. I’d figured the original design had been retired decades ago. But there it was.

This summer I bought Twice Again at the Swatch store in the Oculus in Manhattan. The first time I slipped it on, I was right back in the 80s, a kid trying to express a little style in my own way.

Why I Did It

Here’s what surprised me about this whole quest: the hunt was almost as good as the find. Sifting through dusty watch cases, scrolling through eBay listings late at night, feeling that jolt of recognition when I finally spotted the right one — it all forced me to slow down and remember what those watches meant to me. What I was like back then. What mattered to me.

Replacing these watches wasn’t about chasing value or finding rare pieces. It was about completing the full story — making sure the first chapters of my collection are there alongside the ones I’m adding now.

And maybe that’s worth thinking about for anyone reading this: What are the things from your past that shaped how you see yourself now? The baseball glove you used in Little League? The leather jacket you saved up for in high school? The beat-up Walkman that introduced you to your favorite band?

Those early chapters are still out there, waiting to be found. And the search itself — the time spent remembering, hunting, reconnecting — might be more valuable than you’d expect.

Because in the end, a watch collection isn’t just about telling time. It’s about telling your story.

Leighton Hart works in premium menswear, plays a little golf, and writes Good Clean Fun — a weekly newsletter for anyone who’s won some and lost some and considers both good clean fun.