Kip wrote: ↑Thu Aug 15, 2019 1:42 pm
Many years ago, as a collector, I found it difficult, in many instances, to find historical information on watches I was interested in or had purchased. Whilst it is true that one can locate information on the larger brands, it is usually scattered about the internet and in books, it is rarely complete or in one place.
Not long after my introduction to Christopher Ward, it struck me that this would be good information to maintain on a company I liked and which seemed to have a future. As a result, I started collecting as much information as I could find. Initially I had the intent of putting all this information into book form, but in today's world this doesn’t seem quite practical.
Late in 2009, I had some discussions with the CW Forum founder, Hans, about developing a historical reference for Christopher Ward. These talks developed, thanks to Hans, into the Archives being added to the Forum in Mid-2010. The Archives that we had were very cumbersome to work with and difficult to put into an efficient viewable format, but it was a beginning. However, as time passed, it quickly became outdated and it still was far from what I was after.
I never gave up collecting information and badgering those at CW for details, nor my vision for creating a true historical archive. Around February of 2017 I approached “downer” about researching appropriate software to develop a new archive. Downer had helped and supported me in revising my spreadsheets and is an expert at Excel development. We did a bit more legwork, but still never really got going.
Then it happened…… At the second Admin Team meeting at CW Towers, in October 2018, support was finally garnered from CW for the development of an all new Archive.
Now with the full support of CW, the Admin Team immediately got to work in discussions, searching and organizing all the information we had and deciding how to best utilize it. Software was found, formats tried, and information entered.
After 10 months of intensive work
we are launching the CWArchive!!
Gone is the cumbersome format of the old Archive. Gone is the detailed spreadsheet that I used to update twice per year.
The
all new CWArchive allows you to search for details by collection model and/or variant. Information included is everything that you used to get from my spreadsheet. Also included is resale information that I have been tracking from worldwide sales since 2005 on CW watches.
Other new additions include the watch manuals, magazine and catalog links, movement information, a CW Timeline, press links to reviews and much, much more……..and it is in all one place….
The CWArchive!
My vision has come to life!!
I cannot say Thank You enough to the members of my Admin Team for their hard work and dedication to this project. I would like to offer an Extra Special Thank You to “downer” for doing the leg work regarding the formatting and detailed input of information. Thanks to our “Wordsmith” “AVO” for his writing of all the descriptions. Thanks to “Bahnstormer_vRS” and “ianblyth” for all their input and work proofing. A shout to “MiniMpi” for assisting us through the proofing process. Not to be forgotten is the support we have received from CW on this project, especially Sammy, Olivia and Fraser. A mention goes to Andrew Henry whose ideas also contributed early on.
In the end, we think we have created a reference site like no other brand has. A single place where you can find all relative information, or at least most of it, that is available regarding a Christopher Ward watch and information about the company, both present and historical, that built it.
Due to the massive amount of information we have been working with, we have undoubtedly missed a few things or made some errors that we failed to pick up in the proofing process. You will note that on the home page there is a “Suggest an Edit” place where you can make us aware of any errors or omissions you might see.
The
CWArchive is a continual work in process as new models, information, magazines etc. will be updated regularly.
Please have a look around the CW Archives. We hope that you will find it an enjoyable and useful tool.
Also keep in mind that this is a preview and we will get this attached to the Forum Archive link on the Portal and Board Index page. For now you can compare the old with the new. We will also be adding other categories such as CW Founders biographies and the evolution of the logo etc. as they are completed.
You may preview the new CWArchive
here