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By the time everyone is done reading this article, I fully expect each and everyone one of you to be tearing apart every couch in your office, house, or both because there’s no telling what hidden treasures might be found within.
A woman from Canada reached out to Paul Altieri, founder and CEO of Bob’s Watches, with an inquiry so rare he must’ve thought she was pulling his leg. In his article on the Robb Report, Altieri says a ton of people regularly reach out to him asking about the value of various watches but very rarely does it turn out to be a legitimate collector’s dream watch.
The way she tells it, the woman was sitting on the couch with her dad and dropped her phone. She reached her hand in the couch cushions and found both her phone and the rare Rolex.
Upon closer inspection, she saw that it was a Rolex. She turned to her 92-year-old father and asked him if it was his, to which he replied, “Of course that’s not mine. You know I can’t afford a Rolex.” But little did she and her father know that very few people actually could afford this particular watch. It turned out to be a vintage Rolex Daytona 6241 “Paul Newman.” (via)
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You’re DAMN RIGHT she found a damn Rolex Daytona 6241 “Paul Newman“!!! You’d be hard-pressed to find one of these for sale anywhere in the world at any given time let alone sitting wedged in between the cushions of some random ass couch she bought secondhand in Canada.
Just how special is the Rolex Daytona 6241 “Paul Newman”? Here’s what the CEO of Bob’s Watches has to say about these rare chronographs in his article:
In the world of vintage watches, Rolex Daytona chronographs are king. And the Paul Newman variants of vintage Daytonas—characterized by a very particular dial style—are downright legendary. Paul Newman’s very own Daytona broke the record for the most expensive watch ever sold at auction in 2017, with the hammer coming down at $15.5 million (for a total of $17.8 million with the buyer’s premium). But even before that historic sale, Daytona Paul Newman watches were hot items in the vintage market, built by Rolex in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s and made famous by the film star who wore one.
Rolex produced the manually wound Daytona ref. 6241 from 1966 to 1969, roughly. During this short three-year period, fewer than 3,000 pieces of the 6241 were made and just a small percentage of those were fitted with the “exotic dial” (that would later be nicknamed the Paul Newman dial). As with all collectibles, rarity and market popularity are golden attributes when dealing with vintage timepieces—and the Paul Newman Daytona 6241 boasts a combination of both. (via)
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Only 3,000 of these 6241’s were ever made and one of them happened to be sitting in this woman’s couch. No matter how many times I type this out I’m still having trouble wrapping my mind around this because I’m the type of person who’d be scared dickless to buy a couch off Craigslist or any other second-hand couch because I had a crippling fear of bedbugs instilled in me during my decade in NYC.
Instead, this woman bought a used couch for TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS at a thrift shop and wound up with one of the most valuable Rolex watches of the past half-century.
So how exactly does a sofa magically produce an ultra-rare and highly desirable vintage chronograph? Turns out the conjuring couch was purchased for a whopping $25 at a thrift store four years before the Daytona discovery. The woman (who wishes to remain anonymous) did dutifully call the store, asking if anyone had inquired about a missing watch or if they knew who had been the previous owner (she wisely didn’t disclose the brand to the person handling the call).
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She quickly understood how valuable it was and reached out to us at Bob’s Watches so that she could sell it and put the money to good use. She didn’t want to risk mailing the Daytona to our headquarters in Newport Beach, Calif. She also didn’t have the extra expendable income to take an impromptu international trip to Southern California to see us. Instead, one of our vintage Rolex experts hopped on a plane to visit our new Canadian client. And the watch was indeed a genuine vintage Rolex Daytona 6241 Paul Newman, worth north of $250,000. (via)
Everything about this story is insane. The watch was so legit they FLEW SOMEONE INTERNATIONALLY to come inspect it and, of course, it turned out to be a legitimate Rolex Daytona 6241 “Paul Newman”.
And as I’m sure you gleaned from the title of the article, she told the CEO of Bob’s watches that she was going to ‘buy a house and get a boob job’ with her newly acquired quarter-million dollar fortune that fell into her lap.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to Goodwill to buy some damn catches and then rip them apart in the parking lot with my pocket knife to see if there are any hidden treasures within. I live in Florida so I at least expect to find some mid-grade Meth. Unfortunately, I have no idea what Meth looks like aside from scenes on Breaking Bad so I’ll just have to play it by year.
For the full article, click here to visit the Robb Report.