The DW 5900 was the first "three dial design" G Shock watch and was released in 1990.
I got mine in October of 1991 as a birthday gift. It was a pretty expensive gift at the time, $75 worth, especially considering that I had broken or lost almost every watch I'd had until then.
I'm sure my parents questioned the sense of spending that kind of money on a watch that may not last, and probably thinking this might be way too big a watch for a scrawny little kid like me. Heck, I could almost wear the thing as a belt let alone a watch!
in the end they relented seeing the logic that this was indeed a very tough watch and would probably be worth the money because it would actually survive whatever it was that I did that kept destroying them.
I loved that watch. I wore it constantly and was always amazed at how well it held up no matter How many things I smashed into. In fact, I'd even built up so much faith in this watch that I'd gotten cocky with it. I froze it solid in a cup of water while at working at McDonalds and threw it at the freezer, shattering the ice and Leaving the watch unscathed. I had also dipped it in the fryer (accidentally) and even 300 degree oil didn't affect it. My friends didn't believe me so I let one of them run it over with his car and it was still fine after that.
I wore that watch for years and was always very proud of it. Fast forward a few years and I'm living and working in London, Ontario- a smaller version of the real London, complete with its own River Thames. I applied for a job in the watch and jewelry repair section of The Hudson Bay Company, an upscale departmentioned store. As a way of testing my abilities, the interviewer had me open my own watch, my beloved DW 5900 to see if I could do it. His theory was that if I was confident enough to work on my own watch then is be ok. The DW 5900 had actually gotten me a job- not bad for a 5 year old watch!
A few years later the DW 5900 was still going strong and I was now living and working in Toronto, living with my girlfriend at the time in a low income neighborhood. I was driving a VW Fox back then, a car I was also quite proud of. Unfortunately it was broken into (no surprise for the neighborhood) and my DW 5900 was stolen out of the glove compartment along with a few other things that really didn't matter nearly as much.
I was really upset at the loss of the DW 5900 and I thought about replacing it but I could never find another one- the new ones had a button or something on the front similar to the Timex Ironman. I was a fan of the Ironman, having had one for a couple of years long before I got the G, but I didn't care for it.
Eventually I got another G. I bought one with a tide graph from someone, probably on Knife forums, although for the life of me I don't really recall. It was a nice enough watch but it never really did much for me. It did however get me interested in G Shock watches again and I joined a forum called G-Forces that was dedicated to G Shocks. This was the early days of MTO for those keeping track.
While the tide graph one was a nice watch I just never got along with it and eventually ended up selling it trading it to Duncan when he started working with the Broads Authority and Coast Guard. I never really even knew how to set or read the tide graph so it was a worthless feature to me- not as useful as it would be for a guy who pulls people from the ocean as a hobby!
I didn't post much but I did ask the odd question. I described my old G Shock to the group as I didn't know the model number. I told the story of how I'd lost it and a member there asked me for my address and sent me one- absolutely free, just because he knew I'd appreciate it. I can tell you, it is the nicest thing that had happened to me outside of MTO and I greatly appreciated it.
While I had not intended to spam that forum with MTO links, there were actually more than a few discussions about multitools and I did my best to help his out since they had helped me so much. Someone asked how I knew so much about multitools and I said I owned a multitool forum. Again, no links as I didn't want to spam, but they eventually beat it out of me and that's how Paul, aka Dingosrun became a member here.
By this time I had a Seiko Orange Monster and a couple of other watches so this new DW 5900 saw only limited wrist time.
When I bought the house I currently live in I had left packing up my old place until the last minute and then had to throw everything in boxes, many of which did not even get opened when I arrived at the new house. One of those things was the DW 5900 which has gnawed at me ever since. I occasionally had a quick rummage in the boxes in the garage with no success. Until now.
This past weekend I was pulling some boxes out of the garage, planning to toss out a pile of stuff, and guess what I came across? Yup, the DW 5900. The battery is dead (no surprise there) but the watch is intact and not lost any more.
I plan to pick up a battery for it today and put the DW 5900 back on my wrist where it belongs. It may not be my original watch but it still has history and it is a respectable 25 year old watch.
And I can't tell you how great it is to have my old friend back.
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