Antiques Roadshow guest exclaims ‘woah’ at huge price of watch kept in drawer for years

WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow.

An Antiques Roadshow guest had left a valuable watch gathering dust in a drawer for years, not realising it was worth a small fortune.

The hit daytime show travelled to Northumberland so another episode could be filmed at the beautiful grounds of the Woodhorn Museum. BBC expert Richard Price was on hand to meet with a guest who presented a particularly eye-catching watch.

He began: “So, Rolex collectors obviously know what this is and this is a Rolex Oyster GMT Master. And they refer to everything by the reference number. In this case, it is the reference 1675.

“It’s also here on the bill of sale which I see is from a Hong Kong retailer in the early part of 1971. It’s obviously not bought by you so who bought it in 1971?”

“It was basically a gift to my dad and about five years ago he passed it to me for inheritance”, the guest explained. "He’s still alive but he just thought give it to me to see what I want to do with it and it’s been in a drawer ever since.”

Price went on to elaborate that it was during the 1940s and 1950s that the airline industry started making far longer trips with pilots working on GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).

It was then in the mid 1950s that Pan American Airways, better known as Pan Am, went into discussions with Rolex to develop a watch with an extra hand that could be set to GMT.

“By 1959 or certainly just around five years later, this reference, which is the 1675, became the standard GMT master," Price continued.

“And what is so lovely about this is you’ve got all of the paperwork, what we call in the trade, the full set."

Taking a closer look at the watch itself, the expert remarked: “Things to point to, the bezel is original. Had it been changed, the value would have been reduced.”

However, it wasn’t all good news as he added: “The bracelet is not original. This will be what they call a service replacement.

“The only thing that spoils it, because otherwise it’s in lovely original condition.”

The watch had been purchased at the time for £1,040 Hong ong dollars which would have been equivalent to just under £200.

“That £200 50 years ago has actually done quite well," Price commented before disappointingly sharing: “If it had the original bracelet with the full set, we could have put two noughts on and made it £20,000.”

The guest had nothing else to say apart from “wow” at this revelation but there was some good news still on the way, as he added: “But it’s not got the original bracelet so I’m going to take it back to, in this condition, around £14,000.”

Beaming from ear-to-ear, the owner exclaimed: “What? Woah! No way.”

When asked if he was happy, the guest cheerfully replied: “Yeah. I didn’t expect that at all.”

Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.