Elvis Presley wears a Hamilton Ventura

Chad Gates comes home to Hawaii out of the Army, turns down his mother's plans for the family business, and takes a job guiding tours at his girlfriend's agency, which in a Norman Taurog Elvis picture means two hours of singing, surfing, and Technicolor beach. Blue Hawaii (1961) opens with him driving a red convertible along the coast, still in uniform, a lei around his neck, and a watch glinting on a metal bracelet at the wheel.

The watch's history is unusually well documented, because it was Elvis's own: a Hamilton Ventura in 14 karat white gold with a black dial, bought from Harry Levitch Jewelers, and the auction house that eventually sold it states plainly that Presley wore it on screen and on the set of Blue Hawaii. After several years of use he gave the watch to his father. Hamilton had launched the Ventura in 1957 as the world's first electric wristwatch, a battery feeding the balance instead of a mainspring wound by hand, and the industrial designer Richard Arbib gave it a case to match, an asymmetric shield shaped like a triangular fin. The brand still builds its Ventura line around the Elvis association.