Featured How Can a Watch Worth $100 in 1841 be Worth 250k Today?

When it was owned by Edgar Allan Poe for about a year before he was forced to give it to creditors in a bankruptcy proceeding.
https://www.maineantiquedigest.com/stories/poes-pocket-watch-sells-for-250000/7564

 

Poe fan! So jealous, but this is SO COOL! Congratulations to the rich Poe collector!!!

Nice to see some prices exceeding the expected, but of course this is the top of the tree stuff, pretty much immune from the market vagaries that the rest of us face.

 

Wow.

 

To be fair - $100 in 1841 would've been a buttload of money...

 

True but, the value of this watch today is only worth $1000-$2000 tops so the article says. Clearly the value here is ALL about who owned it.

 

Really a stunning watch, whoever owned it @James Conrad!

What a great dial/face

 

Yes, time pieces/watches can get pricey in a hurry, no doubt. Interesting that this one was not at a "watch" type auction.

 

Depending on their "chain of evidence",the watch could have been engraved with the name at a later date for bragging rights by an owner in 1901.Someone paid cash for the engraving and no evidence ever existed....

 

F.D.R.s $200. Crawford chronograph sold for $440,000. plus a $92,000 buyers premium.

 

Information about JFK's watch can be found in the book : "The Inheritance" by Chris Fulton. It's something beyond money...

 

https://www.sothebys.com/en/videos/timepieces-from-the-greatest-watchmakers-in-history

 

Tried to imbed video above from recent Sotheby's sale, DIDN'T WORK! some incredible watches, it's obvious some folks take timepieces VERY SERIOUSLY!

 

Wow -- some amazing watches there!

 

It all goes to show that realized prices are so often not about the actual item itself, but who may have owned it. Provenance of objects is becoming more sketchy as time goes by - there is so much money to be made, folks get very creative with documents...museums and auction houses are fooled often. In the 90's I met a person who had been convicted of creating documents for high end art provenance of faked paintings - he spent seven years in prison. Claimed he knew a dozen people who made their living doing this in the 60's -70's in New York city.
Of course there are plenty of authentic antiques with real documentation of past ownership - but I never understood folks paying obscene amounts of money for them. If someone famous handed me something of theirs, I'd cherish it and sleep well knowing it's history.

 

I think “important” watches like this hit that special spot. They were touched/worn/used every day and in this type of context they probably just had the one.
Also, watch collectors are a crazy bunch!

 

wow, those are truly amazing pieces, thanks for posting this James

 

lol, I love that show

 

I had never seen that but it was dead funny!
And yes, timepieces can & do go for INSANE amounts of money, almost as nutty as old furniture people!