Antiques Roadshow guest stunned as ‘extremely rare’ £45 watch gets staggering five-figure valuation

Be careful about your conduct when you're cutting about with a watch on, as you never know, you could be walking around with a gold mine on your wrist like this bloke.

The Antiques Roadshow guest admitted that his timepiece had 'got a bit of abuse' over the years while he was blissfully unaware of just how much it was worth, but thankfully, it was still in half-decent condition.

And luckily for him, the resident clock connoisseur on the BBC show and former horological consultant, Richard Price, was on shift to take a closer look at it.

In Sunday (28 July) night's episode of Antiques Roadshow, viewers saw how the Brit offered up his prized possession for an appraisal while detailing the interesting backstory behind how he came to own it.

Take a look at this:

The fella told Richard that parents purchased the timepiece for his 21st birthday around a year-and-a-half after he had joined the Merchant Navy, as he had requested a 'really nice watch' to mark the occasion.

Luckily for him, the vessel he was stationed on was heading to a country which is a world‑leading exporter of watches and clocks that knows a thing or two about the time-ticking industry.

The guest explained: "The chap I was talking to in the ship’s shop, he said, 'If you want an Omega, when we get to Hong Kong, I’ll be able to take you to the wholesaler'."

At this point, the expert's eyes lit up.

Richard interjected: "This is great. When you said Hong Kong, from the Far East..."

The man then whipped out a postcard which he had sent to his parents from Cape Town, explaining he had found a watch that tickled his fancy which 'might cost about £45', before he produced an 'important receipt' that documented his purchase and proved he owned it.

The timepiece might have been 'slightly scruffy', but it was still worth a staggering amount. (BBC)

He explained: "It says, 'Gent's watch, Omega Speedmaster'. I used it fairly constantly up until about 1983. I was sailing dinghies quite a lot, so it got a bit of abuse."

Richard noted that it was in 'slightly scruffy condition' due to it's repeated voyages, but he was left very impressed after the fella informed him it had never been reconditioned and therefore had all of its original components and features.

"That's the joy of it," the expert beamed. "Now, let me tell you right from the word go, this red seconds hand is an exceptionally rare thing to find on a Speedmaster and it is the model that we refer to as the Ultraman.

"Made in 1968, only for a few months and most of them went out to the Far East."

Building up the suspense before revealing what it was worth, Richard reminded the man that the £45 watch had cost him 'about a month's salary' when he was earning £10-a-week in the Merchant Navy.

He then said: "I'm not going to stick my neck out too much... but I'm going to say without any hesitation, it's so rare... £30,000 to £40,000.

The Antiques Roadshow guest was stunned by Richard Price's valuation of the 'rare' Omega watch. (BBC)

"I trust that's more than a month's salary now?"

Cue a series of gasps and wide-eyed looks from the crowd which was gathered around the duo, while the Antiques Roadshow guest quipped back: "It's a bit more than my pension!"

Richard - who has more than 35-years experience of cataloguing, studying, buying and selling antique clocks - then took a moment to really appreciate the craftsmanship of the Omega Speedmaster Ultraman.

The stunned expert said: "I’m gonna hold it because I will never, I’m sure, in my lifetime hold another one, it’s that rare."

According to Richard, the watch has an interesting history.

He explained: "We tend to call it the Moonwatch for the simple reason that the two boys, Armstrong and Aldrin, wore it on the Moon in July 1969. First watch on the Moon."

The model which the guest brought originated in 1968 and is categorised as 'pre-Moon' by experts.

The strangest items that have appeared on Antiques Roadshow

While the ivory ring on last night's show was heartbreaking, some items on the show have just been downright bizarre

Human hair from famous poets

BBC

Ever dreamed of owning the locks of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge?

Well, it'll cost you, as when this item was brought on Antiques Roadshow last year it was valued at upwards of £40,000.

The clippings were a family heirloom, and according to expert Justin Croft, one was taken on a person's deathbed.

Yikes.

Nightmare fuel Teletubbies concept art

Turns out Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po originally looked pretty scary.

Jonathan Hills drew the concept art for the future children's TV icons. He sadly died in 2020 and his wife brought some of his original sketches on the show in 2022.

Expert Mark Hill admitted some of the drawings were 'creepy', but went on to value the individual pieces between £500 and £2,000, and the entire collection of 80 drawings at up to £80,000.

A bottle of pee

Who could forget the time expert Andy McConnell inadvertently drank urine back in 2016?

A bloke called John found the bottle in his garden, and McConnell used the taste test to figure out what was inside, thinking it was port.

Fast forward to 2019, and Fiona Bruce revealed to McConnell: "Inside were these brass pins, all of these dating from the late 1840s, and the liquid - urine, a tiny bit of alcohol and one human hair."

It turned out it was a 'witches bottle', buried on the threshold of a house as a protection against curses and bad luck.