If you haven’t noticed, it seems like more and more people are wearing watches on their wrists. It doesn’t matter if those are smart watches that can tell you the weather, your texts or set your thermostat, many collectors are still interested in the character watches they had their heyday of the 1950s.
With faces that used Disney characters, baseball stars, and movie heroes, these watches were all the rage among us Baby Boomers. Today’s children may be more apt to wear a watch with Captain America or the Black Panther on the front than one without any figures. Character watches are the perfect expression of our love of pop culture..
The earliest chracter watch made by Ingersoll had Buster Brown on the dial. It was on a pocket watch and was the earliest example that I could find.
The comic strip scamp was famous in America in the early 1900s, so it was only natural that he wind up on the face of the first character watch.
The Buster Brown watch merely featured a static image of the character on the back plate. The hands and other mechanisms of the watch remained standard.
In 1933, Mickey Mouse was used to introduce the Ingersoll-Waterbury Mickey Mouse watch, and it was more than just an image on a back plate. The watch used the mouse’s arms to point out the correct time. The Mickey Mouse watch was a huge hit, opening the door to other Disney Characters and a whole host of other celebrities that would end up on a watch face.
By the late 1950s, nearly 30 million Mickey Mouse watches had been sold. During this time, Disney unleashed a torrent of character watches featuring all of their most popular creations. Donald Duck, Davy Crockett, Jiminy Cricket, Snow White, Goofy and Minnie Mouse and other top Disney characters.
Additionally, companies like McDonalds and Coca Cola used these novelty watches to act as a form of advertisement.
CHARLEY PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Hi-do-ho, neighbor! Charley waits patiently hoping she can get some dinner leftovers in almost the same way as Wilson from Home Improvement.
