Lurking in the back of a sock-drawer...

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Thought this was a heart-warming story:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120652944121

A 90+ year old puts an old Rolex on ebay because he's downsizing.

Many of you have inquired regarding the history of the watch. It's intertwined with my personal history, of course, and at the risk of being very boring, I'll recount it. I was drafted out of my residency training in 1957, and assigned to the U.S. Navy (2 1/2 of the best years I ever spent in my life) I went through the Aviation Medical training program at Pensacola, became a naval flight surgeon and selected The Naval Station on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands as my duty station. We did a lot of scuba diving there, and I bought myself a dive watch at the Navy Exchange. That watch is the present one under discussion, and I paid $70.00 for it.

Current bid is over $60,000 and it'll go for $20,000-30,000 more at least.

Blackpitts

bedlam wrote: »

I guess he won't need to downsize any more. There was a similar occurrence a few months back where a TZUK member helped authenticate a similar vintage Rolex. Can't find the thread over there at the moment but IIRC it netted the seller somewhere north of £60k.

/me goes to check sock drawer

so here there are the pics of our hero

http://www.hodinkee.com/blog/2010/12/6/interview-the-man-behind-the-most-talked-about-ebay-listing.html

HDMI

This all seemed very heart warming at first, the old man finding an old watch in his drawer and making good money from it. But he seemed to know the value of an Omega a few months before when he sold it, so seems strange that he did not have a clue that any Rolex is worth money. Also near the end of the auction a bidder withdrew his bids and the value dropped by 30k, so it went from 62k down to 31k with about half hour left, reason given as incorrect amount entered. Then as then auction ended the winner was the guy who withdrew his bids to begin with. All seemed a little strange. I think the image we have in our heads of a frail old 90 year old was way off mark and this guy had his wits about him and knew what was going on from the beginning.