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.
