You know it's a bad sign.....

When you are trying to find a watch band and the US distributor of the "brand" calls you to tell you that they have never seen that watch before!

David got this watch as a gift from a record executive colleague sometime in 1974-1975 in London. Aprey is a very "posh" jeweler in London that also makes the Queens jewelry. It is the royal jeweler.

Anyway, every time he needs a band we have problems because no one in the US sells 17 mm XL bands because the sizes are 16 mm, 18 mm and 20 mm in the US. So, I think, why don't I suck it up and call Asprey?

So I called their Beverly Hills (told ya it was posh) store and the nice lady has me email her a photo. She calls me back and says, "I have never seen that watch and I know we don't have one like it in the store."

We are hesitant to send it back to London with his family because the last time we did that about 2 years ago for a cleaning, they sent it back (packed like Fort Knox in a steel strapped box within a box) by overnight courier, at our expense ($75 plus), and the darned thing did not work. When we called the lady at Asprey in London, she said in her very posh condescending voice that only an English person at a fancy place would use, "Well, Mr. Hubby, you do realize that to make this watch work, you must wind it daily."

To which hubby responded, "Yes, I know, I have been wearing it and winding it for almost 30 years without incident but I sent it to you for cleaning and it doesn't work. It did work BEFORE we it was sent to Asprey but now it doesn't."

Anyway, after a long discertation by the hoity lady about the fact they they employ only the best watch makers in the world, blah, blah, blah...she said to send it back at our expense. Yeah right.....we took it to Suzi at Fast Fix Jewelry at Fiesta Mall where they determined that Asprey had not centered the crystal when they put it back together and therefore the pin could not move.

And now, back to the search in UK ebay.

Editor's note: It was brought to my attention that it appeared as if the Asprey watch was a fake. Nope, it is not a fake just older than most of the people that are looking for the bands.