In the Mid 70’s, my family lived in England. My father worked for Price Waterhouse, and it was a great opportunity for us to ‘see the world’. I was in 3rd & 4th grades while we there, and my sister was a few years behind me. Our parents wanted to expose us to all the great culture, and with every opportunity that came up, they dragged us off to some castle or museum. It wasn’t bad, really, but I’d love to re-trace our steps as an adult with a new appreciation for everything that bored me silly when I was eight.
On one trip in 1976, we were in the family truckster doing a big loop through the European mainland. Rotterdamn, Lichenstein, Zermatt, and too many other places that I can’t quite remember thirty some-odd years later. I remember that it was my Mother’s birthday & snowing when we rolled into Switzerland, and to celebrate, my Father got us each a Swiss watch.
I loved mine.
It was a diver-style watch, with interchangeable colored bezels for different purposes. One calculated your heart rate, another did time zones, and such. It was an automatic movement, so I’d never have to wind it, and I loved the sound it made as I swung my arm around. (Imagine my Mother’s delight as I wildly swung my arm as we went through each & every museum in Europe!) The beautiful & stylish saleslady showed me the proper wrist to wear it on, and told me all about it’s many features. The ‘Incablock’ case was very, very light, and was ‘anti-magnetic’, so it wouldn’t interfere with my compass when scuba diving. It had 21 jewels. It was even waterproof to TWETY atmospheres! (I never did understand what an ‘atmosphere was) It was way too nice of a watch for a kid my age, and I have no idea what my Dad spent on it, but I’m sure it was too much.
Years later, when I was at Prep School, it was stolen from me shortly before I was dismissed from that fine institution. For years, I shut out the memory of that watch as it brought up painful memories of my dismissal, but I never found a suitable replacement. I missed that watch so much that I kept the original box & extra bezels for years.
After my Dad passed away in 2001, periodically I’d run across something he’d given me over the years, and I’d reflect on how I’d never again get another gift from my Dad. At the beach a few years ago, I was talking on that subject with my brother In law (who is also my oldest friend) who had lost his Father shortly after mine had passed. He understood what I was saying, and we spoke about favorite old gifts, when I brought up The Watch. As it turns out, my brother in law is somewhat of a ‘watch guy’, and although I couldn’t remember the brand of the watch, I knew it was called a ‘Flipper’, and he rode off into the sunset to do some research.
He discovered it was made by a company called ‘Fortis’, and realized that I’d had a tough time figuring out what I’d owned, as the early ‘Flipper’ model I had was never sold in the US. An early 80’s version was very popular here, which was a pre-cursor to the wildly popular SWATCH a few years later. However, my Flipper with it’s multi-colored bezels (The grandfather of the SWATCH?) was very tough to find. That made pricing it accurately very difficult to estimate, but in short order he’d found two for me – both international. A very cheap one was in Toronto, but it wasn’t known if it ran, and while it had an original band, it had an incorrect (and awful) single bezel. A VERY expensive one was available in Spain, but it was in magnificent condition with all it’s bezels & original paperwork, though it had a replacement band. Neither came with an original box.
I told the story to my girlfriend, who made a valiant effort to find my ramblings interesting.
A few days later, not wanting to bore her further, I saw that the watch in Spain had sold. This confirmed my belief that these watches were tough to find, and I felt I should then snap one up as soon as I could, so I bid & won the EBay auction for the cheap one in Toronto. Very nervous as to what I’d actually receive, I didn’t say anything. Ten days later, it arrived. I put a new band on it, as I didn’t want to trust the 38 year old original. I wound it manually, and it ticked! I swung it around on my arm, and I was rewarded with a familiar-yet-forgotten sound of a Fortis Flipper winding itself.
I was in heaven! I hated the awful bezel on the watch, and I tore my house apart trying to find my original box with the extra bezels – but it seemed that somewhere along the 30-odd years passage of time, I must have thrown it out.
Regardless, I was thrilled, and I wore it for the next few days to see how it ran. When the girlfriend spotted it, she commented idly, “What watch is that?” When I told her, her face went blank with horror.
You see, she’d bought the Spanish Flipper as my Christmas gift!
I now own not one, but TWO original, early 70’s Fortis Flipper automatic dive watches.
(In the picture, you can see a 70’s ad for the Flipper, though a much lesser model than mine)
