1938 Advertisement

To handle the many requests from various businesses to put Mickey Mouse on Disney products, Herman "Kay" Kamen was hired as full-time manager and promotional salesperson in 1932. Under Kamen's leadership, sales of Mickey Mouse merchandise skyrocketed to several million dollars in just 4 years. The master salesman single-handedly changed Disney merchandising.

The idea for a Mickey Mouse watch was developed by Kamen, who sold the concept to the Ingersoll-Waterbury Clock Company of Connecticut. The first Mickey Mouse wrist watch was produced by the Ingersoll-Waterbury company in 1933. The dial read: "Mickey Mouse Ingersoll". It originally sold for $3.75, then was reduced to $2.75. The company later announced that Mickey Mouse saved the company from sure bankruptcy.

On the first day of release, 11,000 sold at Macy's New York department store. After eight weeks of production, Ingersoll added 2,700 people to its 300-employee workforce.

At the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago in 1933, Ingersoll established a mini-factory where visitors to the World's Fair could order a watch, see it created and receive it right away. The Mickey Mouse watch became the thing to wear at the World's Fair and all across the United States. By 1935 Ingersoll happily paid Disney a quarter of a million dollars in licensing fees as some 2.5 million Mickey Mouse watches by then had been sold.

In 1949, the 5-millionth Mickey Mouse watch was sold.......unfortunately the same year Kamen was killed in an airplane crash.

In 1957, at a special ceremony at Disneyland, Walt Disney was presented with the 25th million Mickey Mouse watch produced.