The name Timex has always been associated to exhaustion for me. An unfair relation maybe but when a brand’s most prominent watch is often on the wrists of runners and marathoners, a link is made all too easily. It’s all too common to hear brands like Timex being labelled as a one-trick pony because of its celebrated Ironman range but behind the brand is a long and arduous history, one even we didn’t know about.
The brand turns a whopping 160 years old this year. Sure, the name Timex may not go that far back but in 1854, the Waterbury Clock Company was established in Connecticut. This company would then go on to be the biggest producers of clocks of that era. From producing clocks, the company eventually started producing pocket watches, leading to its collaboration with the Ingersoll brothers. During this time, the Waterbury Clock Company produced watches for the Ingersoll Watch Company and crafted the Ingersoll Yankee, a pocket watch that costs only a dollar. Soon enough, the Ingersoll brothers bought out the Waterbury Clock Company after it fell into dire straits. From there, the Waterbury Clock Company (as with its sister company, the Waterbury Watch Company) was tossed back and forth between different owners.
To commemorate the tumultuous timeline of the brand and its 160th anniversary, Timex has released its new Waterbury range of watches.
These rugged quartz watches will follow in the same ethos of Timex’s Weekender line – an easy weekend beater that classes up the wrist immediately. For a brand with that long a story behind it, Timex’s ranges don’t show for it at all and it’s something that we can appreciate from the brand. No need to pay for tradition, no cost of history; just an all-American watch that does its job.