Fossil Times: It's Toy Time

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Fossil Times: It's Toy Time

Collaborations are no doubt something you’ve seen with Fossil lately – all these collaborations in 2019 with Crosley, Pride, etc and way back in 1997 Fossil collaborated or teamed up with T.K. Toys of Japan to come up with some limited-edition pieces that came with tin toys.

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Fossil Times Reaches 1997 – Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

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And then it was 1997. Welcome to our ongoing series of bringing back to life Fossil Times from the Collector’s Club era. Up for your consideration today is Volume 4, Issue 1. The newsletters from 1997 & 1998 were the first ones in a different size at 10.5 inches wide and 16.5 inches tall (ie..very hard to scan in)

Let’s start with missing socks. Remember those from last time? In this day and age, it’s hard to imagine a major company (or any company) announcing that they received a sock and have a hard time identifying the sender! 22 years later did anyone ever claim that sock and what was the reward?

The highlight of this newsletter and the reason why this site was created was for the collectors. On Page 3 we find an article called, “C’mon in Collectors” and wow it really made me long for the retail days where you had to go to the stores to get your goods and talk with salespeople. I had a good relationship with the salespeople at 2 of my local Fossil stores and they would call me when the good stuff came in! Like my own personal Cheers Bar minus the drinks. Those Fossil stores in the 90’s were magical and I can attest that they were designed to keep us coming back for more.

Further inside in the newsletter we learn about the international presence of the Fossil Collectors Club – 1500 members internationally! Suspicions confirmed that the retro-American style was loved internationally just as much as here in the good old USA. Little known fact that has been forgotten was Fossil Collectors had their own inbox direct to Fossil HQ: COLLECT.FOSSIL@FOSL.COM

Other points of interest are always Star Wars watches (how many did they make?), information on the 1997 Collector’s Club option and always a highlight for Collector of the Quarter – where are you Matthew Martin?

Enjoy the first issue of Fossil Times from 1997 – it was a good year!

Join the 1997 Fossil Collectors Club

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Just in time for the holidays, join the 1997 Fossil Collectors Club today! Ahh…wouldn’t that be nice? In our own humble opinion this is the peak of the design phase for that 50’s American style we all love and miss. The front cover really says it all, but an exclusive fossil frame is something that our bathroom monkeys must have missed and now they are searching the halls of the interwebs for one! Without further ado let’s dig into Volume 3, Issue 5!

Fossil 2002! If only we knew to save these or remove the batteries immediately. I can’t tell you how many collectors (or eBay scalpers) email us asking to fix these LCD 2002 watches. The LCD watches take 2 batteries and besides replacing the movement entirely we haven’t found a way to fix them. These watches when working selling for good money online, but honestly, they are way too cool to sell. 

The Fossil cups are of interest and we haven’t seen these since going to see Beavis and Butt-Head Do America in late 1996 in the theaters. These cups are one thing we would love in our collection – over 4 million produced, are any left?

Moving onto Collector’s Club news…the Fossil Europe page is very meaty. Details of the previously mentioned European Collectors Club Meeting sound amazing and please send pictures!

Wrapping up the “Fossil Missing Sock Drive” is something Fossil probably regrets. How many socks were mailed and how many of them were not cleaned prior to sending? The world may never know, but take comfort knowing this was a one-time deal and you weren’t involved in opening those stinky packages.

All-righty onto the newsletter!

It’s Mod Time, but let’s pick another name.

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Welcome to another installment of the Fossil Times circa 1996. Unlike previous years and future years the 1996 year saw five (5) Collector’s Club newsletters. We’ve reviewed a few stinkers in the past, but this one is one of the better ones for the Fossil Collector. Ignore as always the Issue/Volume numbers on the top and pretend that you see Volume 3, Issue 4. Let’s begin.

The Mod Time was a bust wasn’t it? 22 years later we never see these come up. Of all the options to put on the front cover in 1996 and this was the selection. No more bashing let’s continue onto the Limited Edition Preview and we start with Star Trek. The LI-1435 is okay if you like that sort of thing, but the takeaway is the LI-1436 where only 1000 were produced and these were in special gold. That’s stuff of dreams for the collector imagine the conversations you could have with all your Fossil Collector’s Club colleagues:

Friend: “Well I finally found the LI-1435 and it comes in a lovely black box”

You: (while polishing your LI-1436 to really make that gold stand out) “congratulations you are 1 of 10,000 other collectors who have the same piece”

Friend: “I want your life”

What’s interesting about all these Limited Editions is the regional distribution. In modern times it’s probably impossible (fiscally & legally) to get such a deal, but Fossil managed to release Star Trek, The Beatles, Mickey Mouse and Toy Story all in this newsletter. Some of these 1000 released pieces are some of the more valuable Fossil watches today. The Mickey ones especially with the wooden toys seems to command a premium along with the gold pocket watch LI-1457.

The rest of the newsletter is dedicated entirely to the Collector’s Club and this is why it ranks high on our list. 22 years later there isn’t a lot of information around our club out there and our bathroom monkeys are continuously searching the interwebs for every piece of information they can find. A few takeaways:

  1. Germany (no surprise) had the highest amount of Collector’s Club members outside of the USA

  2. Like the USA, there was a European Collectors Club Meeting along with an Limited Edition Auction on October 26-27, 1996! Pictures please send!

  3. Fossil Pen Pals was marketed as a way for non-USA members to get limited edition pieces not widely distributed.

  4. The winners of the jacket from the previous newsletter was announced. Fred Heedt and Julie Kodama where are you and can we have the jackets back?

  5. The 1996 Fossil Collector’s Convention was a 6 city tour. Where’s that bus?

Okay onto the show. Sorry for the long post, but this is a good newsletter! Ironic isn’t it that in 1996 a print newsletter was used to announce an upcoming web page and now in 2018 we are using “the internet” to broadcast a print newsletter.

Fossil Blue - you can swim in it

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Fossil Blue. Fossil Blue. Fossil Blue. Say it a few more times and you'll be instantly transported back to the late 90's where everyone (yes everyone) had a Fossil Blue. Going through our historical documents, the Fossil Times we've traced the beginnings of Fossil Blue. Welcome to Volume 3 Issue 3 of the Fossil Times released sometime in the spring of 1996. Apologies up front for the quality of this issue -- it's bad and our bathroom monkeys aren't happy with it's quality, but the price is right (free).

Only a few things to highlight in this issue besides the launch of Fossil Blue. The Fossil General Store is something I don't remember and curious who might know anything more about it. I suppose there's a few of you on this site who have their own Fossil General Stores in their homes including the webmaster! Betty Boop made her appearance in this issue as well as a mention of a very hard to find hand painted dial series LE-9408 & LE-9409 - interesting to note that students painted the dials, sounds more like child labor, but the results were amazing and if you find one of these complete with the display card, you have a rarity. Again rarity doesn't mean big bucks, but enjoy and display with pride.

Before we show you the goods, let's talk about the jacket. The Fossil Letter Jacket Model Search - only 2 of these jackets were made. Who's got one and how did you impact the world as the 1996 Mr. or Ms. Fossil Letter Jacket Model Search Winner?

Onto the show! Oh and whatever happened to Jorg & Reiner?

Join the Club - Fossil Times 1996

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Continuing our journey through the Fossil Times newsletters, we're pleased to release the 2nd newsletter from the 1996 Fossil Collector's Club. The volume and series numbers are ALL over the place, but our bathroom monkeys have been tabulating the data and we are presenting what we believe should be Volume 3 Issue 2. Also note that individual page scans are going to be fairly rough for the next few newsletters -- the only remnant we have from 1996 are full scan PDFs and yes there is some content cutoff (our bathroom monkeys are really upset!) 22 years later this is the best we can do.

Only two things really strike our fancy with this newsletter and first is the Collector's Breakfast. What a great idea....and we'd like to know when the last one was. November 23, 1996 was the fourth annual -- were there more? It'd be great if Fossil chose to do this again, but how many of us would attend? 35 year anniversary in 2019 coming up....wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Second thing of interest is the FAQs. Occasionally we still see limited editions and even standard releases with no numbering or sample numbering like DE-5XXX. Funny to see a corporation admit that samples made it out in the marketplace and if you're thinking that this makes your watch super valuable, you're wrong. However if you would like to buy a certain Defender numbered DE-5XXX I am open to offers and I enjoy real estate, steak dinners and Fossil gift cards.

Please enjoy the second newsletter and as always what happened to Virginia and Kim Johnson?

1996 Fossil Collector's Club - WOW

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Greetings Fossil fans! Whelp…here it is 22 years later we are publishing the first of five 1996 Fossil Times newsletters. This newsletter came out in late 1995 and was hyping the 1996 kit, which is still one of our favorites. Be sure to rush to America Online and check out the Fossil Store with aol keyword “Fossil”. Let us know how that works for you.

This newsletter compared to others really shows the fans and we like that. Can’t help when I read the articles to wonder where is Larry Clark, Frank Monforte, Tim Duensing and the others featured in this newsletter? We get emails all the time from collectors young & old, but never this old! Come on guys reach out (and do you still have the Fossil bicycle)?

Not much else to note in this article besides some limited editions and a few Texas themed ones that are rare…probably because no one has heard of these guys or because the quantities were fairly limited compared to other releases. Byron Nelson has a limited edition pocket watch from Fossil – who knew?

Last thing of note is the FAQ around the warranty. Known even back then in 1996 was the famous Fossil 11-year warranty. A question of ours has been answered around why some of the older watches (like Defender & Limited Editions) didn’t have the standard warranty and we even see this in recent years with the limited warranty on the Fossil Swiss line. It’s sad now that the 11-year warranty is no more, but I can attest that Fossil does their best to repair the older watches, you just have to pay and that can be a hard pill to swallow, but we're fans and fans pay the bills.

Until next time!

A Fossil Defender DE Series Guide to start the new year!!!

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Happy 2018! Let's celebrate by posting a 16 page guide of the Fossil Defender DE series from 1995. We have scanned all 16 pages and listed them out below individually and then uploaded the entire guide as a PDF. If you aren't from Germany, we apologize in advance -- found this in a lot of Fossil documentation found (and rescued) from Germany.

FOSSIL TIMES, ISSUE 4, VOLUME 1 - FOSSIL COLLECTORS CLUB GOES INTERNATIONAL

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Greetings fans and welcome to another edition of the Fossil Times in 2017. As stated in previous posts the order becomes a bit blurry -- we know Volume 2 came after Volume 1 in 1994. Sometime in 1995 (don't all good stories start that way?), the next edition got a little confused and it's calling itself Volume 1, Issue 4 -- which is something we've already discovered before

Let's not focus on the numbers and remember that content is king and this newsletter holds some treasures for the mid-90's collector.  The display case on the front page is from Korea and we can't help but wonder where it is now? Looks like they had some good stuff including the 16 inch tall Fred Q Fossil.

Superman makes an appearance in this newsletter and we've actually gotten many complaints that we don't talk enough about the Superman limited editions. Well here is a sneak peek of "The Man of Steel" launched in October 1995. How many Superman Limited Editions are there? Anyone? Anyone?

I've saved best for the last "Fred Fossil Soars Through Cyberspace" Launching in September of 1995, be sure to fire up your Windows 95 PC with a 1.0 GB harddrive and visit Fossil.com for all your Fossil watch, FSL Sport watches and leather goods. The website is a treasure trove of information and it's still active via archive.org. Man I wish they still had a Collector's Corner.....wink wink nudge nudge.

Please enjoy the last newsletter we have from 1995. Next stop 1996!