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Retail display card for "Diamond" (Zuanshi / 钻石牌) brand stainless steel watch bands
Object/Artifact
Narrow, elongated rectangular card of stiff paperboard, printed on the obverse and designed to function as a point-of-sale display and dispenser for wristwatch bands. The printed face carries a red ground with a white angular panel at the left end bearing the brand's emblem: a stylized faceted gem emitting radiating lines above the word "DIAMOND." To the right, in gold, run the brand name and product designation in Chinese characters, followed by the English line "Stainless Steel Watch Bands" in cursive script and the bilingual statement of origin. Two lengths of bent ferrous wire (of the type used as oversized paper clips) remain fixed through the card near each end; these served to retain the individual watch bands offered for sale. The bands themselves are no longer present, leaving the card as surviving packaging/merchandising material rather than a complete retail unit. The card shows heavy handling, surface soiling, fading of the red ground, and edge wear consistent with shop use and storage.
2025.1.93
Kept by Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez with other watch bands.
The Cabrera Arús family collection
Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez collecition
2025.1
Shanghai Clock and Watch Industry Company
Shanghai
People's Republic of China
Asia
"Diamond" / "Zuanshi" (钻石牌) brand
Maker Unidentified Chinese manufacturer marketing under the "Diamond" / "Zuanshi" (钻石牌) brand. The Diamond/Zuanshi name is historically associated with the Shanghai horological industry — most notably the Shanghai Zuanshi (Diamond) Watch Factory, a constituent of the Shanghai Clock and Watch Industry Company — though the brand name was applied across clocks, watches, and accessories, and a direct attribution of these watch bands to that specific factory cannot be confirmed from the card alone. (Tentative; see Research Notes.) Date Circa 1970s–1990s (undetermined). The bilingual "Made in China" packaging indicates export-oriented production; a precise date cannot be established from the object.
Printed in Chinese and English on the obverse: 钻石牌 — "Diamond brand" 不锈钢表带 — "stainless steel watch band(s)" "DIAMOND" (beneath the faceted-gem logo) "Stainless Steel Watch Bands" (in gold cursive script) 中国制造 — "Made in China" "MADE IN CHINA" Faceted-diamond device with radiating lines serves as the brand logo.
Materials Paperboard (card stock); printed inks (red ground, gold and black lettering); bent ferrous-metal wire clips. Technique Lithographic/offset printing on die-cut paperboard; metal retaining wires inserted by hand or machine.
Fair
Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez
owner
Havana
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
preservation
Shanghai
People's Republic of China
Asia
production
"Diamond" (钻石, Zuanshi) is one of the historically prominent names in Chinese horology. The lineage traces to a Shanghai clock enterprise founded by Koo Hai Zheng in 1932, later nationalized in 1955 within the Shanghai Clock and Watch Industry Company; the Diamond/Zuanshi brand was applied to alarm clocks (widely exported across Southeast Asia), pocket watches (from 1958), and the well-regarded SM1A wristwatch (from 1969), with watch production winding down by the mid-1980s. Whether these stainless-steel watch bands were produced by that factory, a successor, or an unrelated enterprise trading on a common brand name is not determinable from the card; the attribution above should be treated as contextual rather than definitive.