Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

This is my father's pocket watch, and he wore it every day that I can possibly remember, and has this little leather thong on it. He was a cattle rancher down out of Ritzville, and he wore it on his belt loop, in his pocket, and he didn't wear a regular watch because he worked so hard that he would break a regular watch, like, in three or four days, so he wore it always when he was, like, baling hay or driving tractor or throwing calves.

APPRAISER

Let me tell you about the watch a little bit. It's made by the Waltham Watch Company...

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

...in Waltham, Massachusetts, all right? They started in Roxbury, but they soon after set up shop in Waltham. They went into business in the mid-1800s. They went out of business in 1957.

GUEST

Really?

APPRAISER

Yes.

GUEST

So this is old?

APPRAISER

Yeah, sure. Now, at the end of production, they made approximately 35 million pocket watches.

GUEST

Oh, okay.

APPRAISER

So there's a lot of them out there.

GUEST

Yes, it is.

APPRAISER

Now, let me tell you about yours. It's a railroad watch. It has these large Arabic numerals. Down below, you have a subsidiary second hand. But did you ever notice the other dial up on top of the watch?

GUEST

Yeah.

APPRAISER

Do you know what it's for?

GUEST

No.

APPRAISER

What it is, is it's a wind indicator. When you wind the watch, it tells him how much power is left in the winding mechanism, so it wouldn't run out accidentally.

GUEST

Huh!

APPRAISER

It's an added feature. It's the kind of thing you don't see on every railroad watch. Now what we want to do is, we want to turn it around.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

What we're going to do is talk about what makes this watch a little better than the average open-face railroad watch. In the center is a diamond end stone. Usually, they're synthetic rubies.

GUEST

Is it a real diamond?

APPRAISER

It's a real diamond, yes.

GUEST

Ooh!

APPRAISER

We see over here it's a Waltham Vanguard.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

And then we travel over here, and it tells us that it's 23 jewels. 23 jewels is a nice option. A lot of them are 21. And then we go up here and we see that it's six-position. A lot of them came five positions.

GUEST

Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER

So these are just... All those little bells and whistles...

GUEST

Wonderful.

APPRAISER

...that add up and tell us that it's a quality watch.

GUEST

Uh-huh. Great.

APPRAISER

Let's turn it around.

GUEST

Isn't that something, that a rancher would have a railroad watch?

APPRAISER

And a very high-end one.

GUEST

Yeah.

APPRAISER

If you have to go out and buy this watch again today, I feel you would have to pay somewhere between $3,000 and $5,000.

GUEST

Holy Toledo! Whoo-hoo!

APPRAISER

(chuckles)

GUEST

That's wonderful. You're kidding?

APPRAISER

I'm not kidding you, no.

GUEST

I mean, he banged this thing around every single day on this thong, just tied to his... This is wonderful! Thank you!

APPRAISER

I'm so glad you're happy.

GUEST

Oh, I love it. Thank you so much.

APPRAISER

You're welcome.