Since the article on my 50th birthday watch was published, I have been asked multiple times how I got into flipping watches. To best understand this, you must better understand me. I am an only child of a mother who was the youngest of 10 children and a father who was the youngest of 4. Both were born in the depression (1935 and 1929) and lived through WWII with siblings having fought in that war. 
My mother?s family was from Quebec City, and they lived in a rural area outside the city, with very little creature comforts. My father was from Montreal and fared a little better, having grown up in a middle-class family setting. However, times were hard, and both learned how to stretch a dollar and loathed excessive spending. 
I on the other hand grew up in Montreal in a comfortable middle-class neighborhood. While we never really struggled for anything, I was still brought up as if we could not afford much. So, if I wanted something, I had to get creative. I quickly realized that if I wanted a toy that I did not have, I could trade something I did have to get what I wanted. I did this with Star Wars toys, GI Joe, Transformers and later on with comic books and Atari games. 
The author, with an unknown gift and watch on wrist, Christmas 1978

I remember when Walkman portable cassette players were super popular, my mother managed to finagle one using her Club Z points from Zellers. This was the equivalent of K-Mart in Canada and Club Z was the original loyalty plan. ...