One Antiques Roadshow visitor had been carrying round tens of 1000’s of {dollars} on his wrist for many years by the point he acquired his Rolex watch appraised on the PBS present.
In a lately resurfaced Roadshow clip from Season 22, the visitor mentioned his uncle had bought the Rolex watch at Tiffany & Co. in New York within the mid-Sixties and gifted it to him in 1975 after the uncle realized his nephew didn’t have a watch to put on in school. “Sadly, he handed away a number of years again, however he was all the time a type of individuals who all the time like the latest issues,” the visitor defined.
The visitor mentioned he had worn the watch nearly daily since, however he didn’t know a lot about it. He solely discovered it was a Rolex GMT-Grasp, for instance, when a jeweler commented on it throughout a flight. However the visitor had the great sense to not let Rolex service the watch and exchange the unique, Tiffany-branded watch face.
“It was particularly fascinating to me that the watch was bought at Tiffany’s in New York, and I assumed that was a extremely fantastic characteristic in regards to the watch,” the visitor defined. “And I knew that in the event that they changed it, it wouldn’t have that, and I assumed that was particularly distinctive.”
Antiques Roadshow/YouTube
Peter Planes of Royce Property Patrons, Inc., in Palm Seaside, Florida, the appraiser within the Roadshow section, advised the visitor the watch was in all probability round $275 to $350 when his uncle purchased it within the mid-Sixties. The watch has distinctive options, together with the gilt dial, an underline on the watch face, and the Tiffany & Co. branding.
“Tiffany now not sells Rolex watches,” Planes mentioned. “They used to promote Rolex watches, however at some point Rolex determined that they didn’t need to print the Tiffany identify on the dials anymore. Tiffany took the stance that, ‘We’re a model identify, and we don’t need to promote something that doesn’t have our identify on it.’ So that they took the company choice to not promote Rolex anymore if they may not have their identify on the watch. The truth that it has the Tiffany identify on the dial provides to the collectability of the watch.”
Planes mentioned that if the visitor had had Rolex service the watch and exchange the light bezel insert and the dial, the watch can be value $10,000 to $12,000 right now. However as a result of the watch nonetheless has its unique parts, it’s value $50,000 within the retail market.
“Oh, good grief,” the visitor responded. “That’s, uh… that’s completely beautiful to me. I imply, I feel the very best I ever heard was $30,000, which I assumed was loopy and outrageous, however the truth that it’s value $50,000 is startling to me.”
On YouTube, commenters praised the visitor for cherishing his watch and sporting it daily — and praised the Roadshow digicam operator who zoomed into the visitor’s watch tan line when he mentioned so.