A long time ago, in a pawnbrokers far, far away ( well, for most of you at least -- I'm sitting in Head Office right now ).....
In the "odd shaped items" section of the safe I noticed, among those pledges about to expire, a Submariner without a bracelet.
I had just bought the JMD book, which tells you how basic was my advancement in the vintage world at the time.
Any Submariner appealed, so even if this one needed a bracelet it could be worth looking over.
Oh. A circled T on the dial. I've seen that before in the book. I instruct the pawnbroking manager to pass the watch to me for further examination when it finally expires.
The time comes and I look it over. Yep, T-dial and a load of numbers on the back, 0552/923-7697 and a little wig-wam, all the same as in the book, but then x84/76. Hmm, that's a bit different from the ones in the book, but I don't dig the significance. Ok, book says it was a military watch.....ooooh, and look at the price guide for it in the back of the book ! ( Can you hear the sobbing as I write ? ).
The pledgor had been offered more for it, but £50 was all he wished to borrow.
Well, I don't know if I fancy one without a bracelet for myself, and since there is a legal onus on me in UK law to obtain a fair market price for the pledgor let's see if I can get him something close to the book price.
I call one VRF-familiar collector / dealer and describe the watch. He offers £2,000 --- perhaps a good price at the time. I call another, and tell him what I have already been offered ( ok, I know, I was greener than Greenpeace at the time ). He offers me £2,100 and I accept. He expresses mild joy and says he likes to put such watches aside for his pension.
Perhaps at this point, the first collector / dealer may wish to review what happened and post his own competition entry
Sorry for us both, my friend!
As observers may note, not many mil subs have escaped me since. While the watch could never have been mine for £50, it could have been for around £2,000. A fortune compared with the couple of hundred quid they were lined up at in surplus outlet Motosail !
Plenty more dearly departed, oh yes.
6263 Daytona sold for £3,000 ( and in fact I only saw £1,350 of that, thanks to bent smoothie Andrew Batchelor, who is now serving his second prison term for jewellery crimes ).
DRSD sold for £4,250 a couple of years back --- having been in my window at £4,695 for months. Even MW wasn't interested at that price, at the time.
The 5513 Explorer dial at Fellows -- here in the shop I couldn't bring myself to think the dial would clean up, so it ended up with K and full marks to him for putting his hand up, bidding the highest and correctly banking on cleaning it up well.
Thanks to E for the competition. Who knows, it might even bring publicity to your new website
Haywood Milton, UK
