10-year-old treasure hunter at a Sydney beach reunites lost 1975 Cartier Santos with its owner

Zach Blass

If you ever lose a watch at Mosman’s Balmoral beach in Sydney, it would seem there is a particular family you need to call to increase your odds of its retrieval. The Daily Mail reported that an elderly British man lost his 1975 Cartier Santos watch while visiting the Sydney beach, but thankfully enlisted a family of treasure hunters to help him recover his coveted watch.

Now before I dig into its retrieval, two things stand out to me here. Firstly, a watch of that age and design is not the most suitable for a swim. Secondly, while I therefore understand why the owner took it off before plunging into the water, it was reported that the elderly man had lost the watch after putting it in his pocket ahead of his daily swim. That seems like the worst place to put the watch. Either it was in the pocket of his swimming trunks, at which point what was the point of removing it from his wrist. Or, it was in a pair of shorts that remained on land at a beach chair or towel. Unless the pocket was a zipper-pocket, which it clearly was not, that also does not seem like the brightest idea and is naively trusting of the surrounding public visitors at the beach. That being said, I do envy the older generation’s perspective that watches are not meant to be babied, they are meant to be worn. Theoretically, a maintained watch with 30m of water-resistance could withstand a casual surface-dip in the water. Nonetheless, I would say it is ill-advised – especially if it is precious memento you purchased in Paris some 40 years ago like this owner had.

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending thanks to the Shave family – a treasure-hunting trio consisting of a father, mother and son. Kylie Stevens of the Daily Mail explains: “Mr Shave and his family are avid snorkellers who have found dozens of lost treasures at Balmoral this summer alone, including phones, several Apple watches and an expensive Fitbit.”

But the particular hero in this moment was 10-year-old Josh Shave, who, to his father’s surprise, found the watch 20cm under the sand by the steps leading down to the water with his rake and metal detector. For his efforts, the owner of the Cartier watch rewarded Josh with “an undisclosed amount of pocket money”. But for Josh, the biggest prize of the day was the pride in being the hero who unearthed the prize.