ELECTRIC Moment On Antiques Roadshow As Veteran Finds Out Old Watch Is Worth $700K
I know what you're thinking...
"Why doesn't Barstool SPORTS do more Antiques Roadshow #content??? I'm hungry for it. Starving. It's all I can think about.."
Great question & hopefully if my editors see this blog they'll change their minds & it will become more of a focus on the site. We've only done one other blog on it so far (when a guy dropped a casual 'Roll Tide' mid-show back in '15)... But who knows? This moment might be so electric that we become Antique Sport's Barstools Roadshow. A girl can dream.
In the first few minutes of this clip the man explains he was an Air Force veteran drafted in 1971, and was stationed out of Thailand from 1973 - 75 during the Vietnam War.
On his various travels abroad there he noted that most of the commercial pilots were wearing Rolex watches so he wanted one, too. Then he got into SCUBA diving and knew Rolex's were also solid for that, so he finally gave in and ordered this bad boy from the base exchange (10% discount!) for $345.97. At the time he estimated that was about a whole month's paycheck for him.
Thankfully he found it too beautiful to take diving with him & kept it out of the salty sea. When he got back stateside & left the service it wound up in a safe deposit box with the original packaging & documentation. He started wearing other watches so there it sat untouched for over 40 years…
A few minutes in, appraiser Peter Planes pointed out that his pristine, untouched Rolex paperwork was worth thousands on its own, so you could tell this was going to be a good one and indeed, it only got better…
The watch having the word "OYSTER" on it, the unusual water resistant screw-down buttons, the original foil sticker on the back with the still-visible reference number (which proves it's been unworn), the date inside the bracelet, and the fact that Paul Newman wore this same version in Winning all added to the value..
Finally, at 04:55 Planes starts to tell this Air Force vet the value and I was fucking BEAMING watching it.
After hearing this man's kind, soft-spoken manner, & listening to him discuss his old job as an EOD tech - clearing roads of unexploded land mines and some of the horrible things he witnessed - I can't help but be overjoyed that he has this incredibly happy memento from his time in service, too. I mean.. what an image:
I love that he was quite literally bowled over, and also that Antiques Roadshow had to bleep his mouth:
Good bleep, man. Good bleep.