Texas Timex (gold Rolex watch)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

Anything in the next HDAS or in the Dallas Morning News for "Texas  Timex"?
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_http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/texas_timex_gold_rolex_watch/
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(http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/texas_timex_gold_rolex_watch/) 
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A “Texas Timex” is a gold Rolex watch. A Timex is an inexpensive watch; a  
Rolex is an expensive watch. The joke is how Texans flaunt wealth.  


_Rolex_ (http://www.rolex.com/en/)  
1905 
Hans  Wilsdorf established a London firm specialising in the distribution of 
watches.  
1908 
Wilsdorf registers a brand name with which to sign his creations:  ROLEX. 
Easy to pronounce in any European language, it is short enough to  tastefully 
feature on the dial of a watch. 

_Timex_ (http://www.timexpo.com/timeline7.html)  
1950s: 
U.S.  Time’s wartime expertise in research and development and advanced mass  
production techniques led to the creation of the world’s first inexpensive 
yet  utterly reliable mechanical watch movement. The new wristwatch, called the  
Timex, debuted in 1950. Print advertisements featured the new watch strapped 
to  Mickey Mantle’s bat, frozen in an ice cube tray, spun for seven days in a 
vacuum  cleaner, taped to a giant lobster’s claw, or wrapped around a turtle 
in a tank.  Despite these and other extensive live torture tests, the Timex 
kept ticking.  When John Cameron Swayze, the most authoritative newsman of his 
time, began  extolling the Timex watch in live “torture test” commercials of 
the late 1950s,  sales took off. Taped to the propeller of an outboard motor, 
tumbling over the  Grand Coulee Dam, or held fist first by a diver leaping 
eighty-seven feet from  the Acapulco cliffs, the plucky watch that “takes a licking 
and keeps on  ticking” quickly caught the American imagination. Viewers by 
the thousands wrote  in with their suggestions for future torture tests, like 
the Air Force sergeant  who offered to crash a plane while wearing a Timex 
watch. By the end of the  1950s, one out of every three watches bought in the U.S. 
was a Timex brand  watch.  
_Google  Groups: misc.survivalism_ 
(http://groups.google.com/group/misc.survivalism/browse_thread/thread/79a3d5546ccb2aea/044e01c0eba8dca0?lnk=st&q="texas+t
imex"&rnum=12&hl=en#044e01c0eba8dca0)  
From:  Chester Bateman 
Date:   Mon, Jul 31 1995 12:00 am 

I would vote for Rolex as well, my dad is a  rancher in Texas and has worn a 
Rolex everyday for twenty years.  He calls  it his Texas Timex   

_Google  Groups: alt.horology_ 
(http://groups.google.com/group/rec.collecting/browse_thread/thread/fb23b4a0bf901ce0/d52f908cfd880251?lnk=st&q="texas+timex"&
rnum=11&hl=en#d52f908cfd880251)  
From:  stephen_k_davis 
Date:  Mon,  Feb 24 1997 12:00 am 

Would like any information on the history and  present value of a ca.1967 
Rolex Presidential “LBJ Commemorative” model.   The watch is gold with a 
textured bezel.  The bracelet has textured (a soft  nugget look?) and polished links. 
 This watch was called the “Texas Timex”  by some and includes all papers 
and box.  Any information greatly  appreciated. 

9 September 1985, Chicago Tribune, pg. E1: 
You  know by his outfit that he is a Texan, for Jim Hightower seldom appears 
in  public without a 10-gallon hat, cowboy boots and jeans. 

Between the  jeans and the hat, however, Hightower sports duds and 
accessories appropriate to  Washington, D.C. 

Up in the nametag landing area, for example, we see a  beige buttondown shirt 
and a gabardine jacket of subdued plaid. His watch is  slim and elegant, 
rather than the chunky gold Rolex preferred by other  go-getters in his home 
state, who like the flash of a good ol’ “Texas TImex.” 

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