Al Pacino wears a Helbros Teamsters

Jimmy Hoffa ran the Teamsters, the country's largest union, and in The Irishman Al Pacino plays him with the Teamsters on his wrist. The watch is a Helbros, gold-plated, the union's logo printed on the dial. These were real objects: Helbros made Teamsters watches as union promotional pieces, handed out to members and officials, and they still turn up on eBay. Hoffa, in the film, seems to have a drawer full. Oracle of Time, reviewing the movie, gave up cataloging them and just noted that he wears a different one in nearly every scene.

Helbros was never a prestige name. Two brothers, William and Julius Helbein, started it in New York in 1913 on the premise that a decent watch shouldn't be a luxury, and for decades it sold exactly that, the affordable watch on a drugstore counter, until Elgin absorbed the company in 1963. The flashier watch people remember from The Irishman, the gold one with the diamond bezel, is not even Hoffa's. That one is a Mathey-Tissot, and he gives it to Frank Sheeran, De Niro's character, at a union banquet.