When I was a kid, I wore a few cheap Timex watches. I'd wear it for two or three days and it would stop working, forever. My grandmother also had this happen to her. My wrist would magnetize the moving parts and it would cease to work.

Eventually, I got a pocket watch and it worked well for many years. As technology increased, I kept my eye on electronic watches.

When I was a teen, I finally bought an electronic watch with a red LED display. The display used a lot of battery power, so I had to twist-flip my wrist to switch on the display, to see the time.

Next was a Casio with phone number memory, it would store about 100 phone numbers, and show the time. I had that watch many years.

I stopped wearing watches for a long time, as being in the trades would beat them up way too much.

When my dad passed a few years ago, I got his watch. It is a Swiss Glycine Airman, with a 24-hour dial. He bought it in the early 1960's and wore it every day.

The hour hand goes around once each day, not twice. The rim is marked in 24 hour divisions, not 12. It has an outer ring that can be rotated and locked at a second time zone.

Here is a pic of one from the era: http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/191833999528-0-1/s-l1000.jpg

I took me about 6 months to learn how to intuitively and instantly read the time, as the positions of the hands on a 24 hour watch is so different from a 12 hour watch.

When I got it from dad's stuff, I had it serviced by a very old watchmaker, who is recognized around the world as an expert with this particular watch. He cleaned and oiled it and set the rate to be accurate at 3 seconds fast per day. I was quite impressed that a 60 year old mechanical watch can keep time that closely.

As far as the magnetism when I was a kid, I think it stopped being a problem around the time I completed puberty. This Airman watch is not affected.