When the most valuable watch in your collection isn’t worth anything to anyone but you

Shane Hegarty

My parents moved house a couple of years ago. “Any watches?” I asked as they sorted through 45 years of accumulated stuff.

“Yes!” said my mother and went off to grab it.

We all hope for the barn-find. A watch pulled out of the sofa, found in a drawer, handed down by a long-dead relative. The watch that lands you on Antiques Roadshow.

“A 60s Daytona, you say? Best condition you’ve ever seen? Jeepers. Worth how much? Well gosh, it’s not about the money but…”

My mother handed me the watch, told me to keep it. It was a Swiss-made, Welta-branded three hander from, I guessed, the late ’50s or early ’60s. Under scratched crystal, the printed white dial was flat and one-dimensional except for greyed lume plots interspersed with a playful art deco typeface. The blued sword hands were genuinely lovely features.

It was, more or less, worthless. It instantly became the most valuable watch I own.

Why? Because it had belonged to a grand-uncle I had never known but heard all about. It had been with him when he died but when I wound it, over 50 years later, it resumed ticking as if it had only been waiting for a little push.

When I put it on my wrist, the creases on the dried, fragile leather strap matched the curves of my wrist exactly. Here was an instant connection with a man long gone, who I had never met but whose watch ticked near his pulse as it now did near mine.

I had been buying watches for a few years until that point and, despite initial intentions, each ended up carrying two price tags – the price paid and the notional price it would fetch should I ever sell it.

Now serviced – but scratched crystal left untouched – this generally unremarkable Welta watch reminds me, firstly, of the marvel of watches. Have a look around the house and find a recent gadget that might be switched on in 50 years and will wheeze back to life like you only put it down five minutes ago. There’s still something faintly miraculous in this trick.

More importantly, my uncle’s watch sits in the box, calmly, patiently passing time, while everything else around it gathers or (more likely) loses dollars. It mightn’t tell time particularly accurately, but it connects across time far better than any other. It’s the one I still want in the collection after all others – and me – are gone.

Maybe I’m naïve because, yes, we can wonder how my attachment would have been affected if my mother had handed over, say, a 1016 Explorer. Or maybe it’s a little obvious, because maybe every collector has that one piece they would never put a price on. A watch with a story worth more than the price tag.

But it helps to be reminded of that and to open the watch box and see a watch that’s of no value to anyone else, but invaluable to you… an “anchor” watch keeping things grounded in a watch world gone price mad.