A man who bought a Rolex Daytona for $543 in 1973 found out it's now worth at least $100,000

These are the stories you love to hear. Unsuspecting man – a pilot – because of course he's a pilot – needs a watch for navigation purposes in the early 1970s. So he stops into his local watch shop, picks up a watch. Maybe that gold one, with the weird dial that nobody seems to want? Sure. He pays $543.38 for it, wears it for a few years, then puts it away. Decades pass. He hears that Antiques Roadshow is coming to town, and think his little gold Rolex might be worth $500, or maybe a little more. Yeah, he was right.

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When he met the appraiser on Antiques Roadshow, he was told the Daytona, which – oh, by the way happens to be a solid-gold Paul Newman Daytona; and oh, by the way it has the original box, papers, receipts, strap, and buckle – could easily be worth $100,000 and that it was a reference 6263. It's not a 6263, but the watch certainly could easily be worth $100,000, and in fact, quite a bit more. You can watch the full clip here.

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Well, after finding out the watch could be worth into six figures, the owner proceeded to sell the timepiece to a broker, who then passed the watch along to the boys over at the Keystone, in California, over six months ago! And now that the episode of Antiques Roadshow where this gold Paul Newman is featured has aired, they've decided to finally list the watch for sale. Price is, naturally, on application, but considering the quality, provenance, and original nature of the watch, we're confident in saying it is worth north of $350,000.

Check it out right here, and feel free to kick yourself (and your parents, and your grandparents) for not buying one of these Daytonas back then.

DID YOU KNOW? The retail price of a 14k yellow-gold Daytona (reference 6265) in 1975 (two years after this watch was purchased, but as close as we have firm documentation for) was in fact $1,950. And this man paid $543. So if you assume retail for this watch was fractionally less than $1,950 because it is a pump pusher (non-Oyster) and sold without gold bracelet, you can assume retail was around $1,200 or so. You've heard about PN's selling at discount – here's proof. If anyone has firm pricing on a gold 6241 in 1973, we'd love to know about it.

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