Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

This is a watch. I don't know the brand, but it is a very important piece for our family. My husband's family, and mine as well, we were second generation automotive industry here in Detroit. My father-in-law was an executive for General Motors. He started working in 1940, and he rose up the ranks to a finance executive position in a division that no longer exists. It was called GM Overseas Operation. He was honored with this watch when he hit the 25-year mark, which was in 1965. And he received it in their division in Brazil. A lot of folks around here grew up in this environment, where they traveled all internationally. So he had a ten-year stint in S�o Paulo, Brazil.

APPRAISER

The brand is Patek Philippe. Have you ever heard of that?

GUEST

No, I think our family thought it was Phillips Paddock or something... we didn't have the information right.

APPRAISER

Patek Philippe is one of the finest Swiss watch brands in the world, bar none. There's a lot of good other brands, but by nature of market placement and branding, it's really at the pinnacle

GUEST

Wow.

APPRAISER

of dress watches in this time period. It's made in Switzerland. It's all in 18-karat yellow gold. Usually, when you have a watch like this, a lot of times it came on a strap, whether it was plain calf or alligator or something like that. This particular one has a gold bracelet. Now, usually when Patek would supply the bracelet, the bracelet would be marked. And on a watch like this, they wouldn't have left this open space in here by the lugs. They would have curved the bracelet so everything fit in. So I would say that this watch bracelet is after market.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

The first thing we notice that's a little unusual is a lot of watches, the dial is white or silver or a rather light shade. This one is black. You didn't see a lot of black-dialed watches. They kind of came out of the military, because they wanted something that was non-glare. But guys like a black watch. But what's interesting is, along with the batons and the subsidiary seconds, you'll notice all the numbers have a gold tone. So it's actually what we call a gilt finish, underneath the lacquer on the watch dial.

GUEST

Oh.

APPRAISER

All right. Now we're going to flip it over, and then we come back here, and you see the GMC G... new logo, and it has his initials, and it has the years of service, 1940 to 1965. What I'm going to do now is we're going to pull the back off. Now every Patek Philippe has a reference number. This one happens to be reference 1578. But if you notice, after it, there's two initials, GM. So what this tells me is that this is a contract watch.

GUEST

Oh.

APPRAISER

That GM used to order enough watches from Patek Philippe that they made up these watches especially for them.

GUEST

Oh.

APPRAISER

And they even would stamp it with the GM logo. Down below it, you'll see a serial number, just as you'll see serial numbers and a lot of information on the movement that tells you it's 18 jewels. It will tell you it's adjusted to five positions, hot and cold. If you look up the number, it's made in 1964 to 1965. At auction, this watch would be $12,000 to $18,000.

GUEST

Oh... oh, boy. Wow. I'm... I'm... It's too bad I had it in a Ziploc bag earlier today. (laughter) Okay, we'll note that. I thought you were going to say $2,500. (laughter)