Heirloom Contest Winner: Bill McBain

 

www.centralwatch.com

 

Central Watch would like to thank all the entrants in our heirloom contest. Your stories touched us deeply and we wish we could extend the prize to each and every one.

Central Watch is an heirloom in itself for our family. Our grandfather came to this country with a dream to build a business that would provide for his family. Through years of hard work and endless commitment, he realized that dream and his tradition of diligence and integrity has passed from father to son for three generations.

Restoring your family treasures is more than a job for us, it is a labor of love. In our 62 years in business, we have been lucky enough to be trusted with the restoration of many precious heirlooms. Please know how very much we treasure that privilege. Watches do not just tell time, they keep time. They are vessels for the history they have witnessed. When they are passed from generation to generation, the stories continue to be told and the moments live again. We are so grateful to play a small role in that beautiful process.

 

Now for the winner of the $500 gift certificate towards the restoration of his vintage watch: BILL MCBAIN.

We agree, your grandfather would be proud to see you walk down the aisle in his watch. We'd be honored to help make that happen. We will inbox you privately this weekend on Facebook with the details on how to redeem your prize.

 

To read Bill's story, see below:

 

"Growing up my grandfather, and my namesake, was my hero. Some of my earliest memories are sitting on his lap as we dialed a computer modem in his basement to connect to another modem he owned at the local phone company so we could access a very primitive version of the internet to play games. It was while watching me each Saturday afternoon in the late 1980s, before the World-Wide-Web even existed, that he fostered my love for technology and life-long innate curiosity.

As an adolescent I helped my grandfather clean out his house to downsize as my grandmother was in a nursing home. One of the things I came upon was an old dusty watch with hands that didn’t move. I asked him why he kept it if it was broken and he had other watches that worked fine. He told me, “That watch was a gift. I received it when I was made General Counsel of my advertising agency, Donnelly Advertising. It was a sign of Mr. Donnelly's trust in me." He stopped wearing it when he retired from corporate law and worked as a public defender. Over the years it made its way to the drawer where I found it. My grandfather gave it to me that day and explained how it was an “automatic” meaning that it wound itself and never needed a battery. I got a new band for it that fit me and wore it regularly for many years with pride.

I stopped wearing it about 5 years ago when it stopped keeping time regularly. I brought it for an estimate to repair it. The honest watch repairman told me that I should buy a used one on ebay. I countered back explaining the story of how I received the watch, my love of my grandfather, and how much sentimental “this” watch had for me and how it was much more than the actual market value of just any 1950s Omega seamaster automatic. The repairman looked at me, a broke early 20s New York transplant, and said “Keep this watch. Some day you’ll be able to afford to get it fixed right and wear it proudly. Please don’t take it to someone who doesn’t know what they are doing. Just keep it in a drawer until the day when you can get it restored properly.” And I did. It has sat in a wooden box on my dresser for the last few years. I’m getting married August 22, 2015. I’d really love to be able to wear my grandfather’s watch on my wedding day and wear it regularly to my job at a digital advertising agency, something my grandfather would truly be proud of."

 

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