GUEST: As a grade-schooler, my father had given it to me. It was originally my great-grandfather's pocket watch.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: And it's been in the family... since he bought it. I'm not sure when that was, although it was probably before 1900. When my father first gave it to me, I used it as my timepiece in grade school, and fell playing football, and busted the crystal on it. The crystal was replaced, and after that, it's been in a safe ever since.
APPRAISER: Well, uh probably wiser than playing football with it.
GUEST: (laughs)
APPRAISER: Um, it's signed on the dial "Spaulding and Co." Now, it wasn't ever actually made by Spaulding and Co. They were just the retailers of it. This watch was made by Patek Philippe circa 1900. They're a very famous...
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: ...Swiss watch manufacturer.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: Now, when you go back to the 1900 era, a lot of their more important pieces that were sold were signed simply on the dial by retailers: uh, Spaulding, Bailey Banks and Biddle, Tiffany and Co....
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Um, all were very high, very large retailers of Patek Philippe. What makes this one slightly more interesting, as well, it's designed with what's called a, a minute repeater.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: The minute repeater works by sliding a slide on the side of the case. Now, you can push that slide, and it will chime the time to the nearest minute. If you are out at night and you want to know the time, you could simply push the slide and listen to it, rather than having to, to light a light to see what the dial actually said. Incredibly useful. Uh, they were some of the better pocket watches and some of the more desirable made. It has what's called a split-second chronograph. A chronograph, it's a time recorder. It's a stopwatch, effectively. It was largely used for timing racehorses, et cetera.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And it goes one step further. It's actually a split-second chronograph. So, you can see on the dial, it has two hands, one here and one here. These are used so you can independently time, say, the first and second place in a horse race. You don't normally find multiple complications in Patek Philippe watches. Patek Philippe, in general, they are some of the best in the world. To find them with a minute repeater is, is very desirable. Or to find them with a split-second is very desirable. To have the combination of the two, and also in, particularly, this is, it's quite a small size case.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: You don't tend to see very many of them. For an auction value, I expect you'd probably fetch in the region of around $20,000 for it.
GUEST: My goodness.
APPRAISER: I wouldn't play football with it again.
GUEST: No, I don't think so. (both laugh)
