When is a Watch Not a Watch?

By Bruce Shawkey

Found this interesting articles in a 1960 issue of Europa Star magazine:

When is a watch not a watch? 

"When it is a calendar" is of course not the right answer although the harassed young watch salesman may sometimes wish it were. Watches are getting more complicated every year and the salesman must have far more knowledge, both technical and trade knowledge, than he needed even five years ago. He must understand and be able to explain the technical complexities of modern watches and he must know who makes or who imports parking watches. map-reading watches, world time watches and so on that are being increasingly publicized in newspaper and magazines. This trend toward complexity, deplored by some jewelers, actually favors the jeweler over ocher retail outlets. Unlike. say, the tobacconist, the jeweler should have the specialized knowledge that the selling of complicated watches demands. He has, too, the servicing facilities to back up sales with after-sales sales service. For good or ill, the trend is here and will grow if and when watch freedom comes.

Calendar watches a few years represented only a tiny fraction of the output of the Swiss factories. Today, self-winding calendar watches in waterproof cases are a standard line produced in quantity. As parking meters make their appearance in more and more streets, parking alarms will become commonplace necessities. The rate  of present-day scientific progress promises that clocks will become more rather than less involved in the course of the next few years.