Hearing good news can sometimes make a person jump for joy, or scream in celebration, or myriad other reactions that result in that person still being upright and mobile. Not everyone follows the same drum beats, though, such as a beyond-astonished guest from a recent episode of the always intriguing auction appraisal series Antiques Roadshow. (Don't worry, no urine-drinking in this one.)
A magnificently bearded North Dakota veteran named David appeared on Antiques Roadshow with a rare and pristine Rolex watch he bought in the 1970s, and I think we can all live vicariously through his falling-over-backwards reaction to host Peter Planes. (And that was before Planes even gave him the final total.) Check it out below, with the big moment happening around the 4:45 mark.
David, a former air force vet, could not have been more taken aback by Peter Planes' presumably non-erroneous estimation for what the Rolex watch would be worth at an auction. The timepiece, which was bought in the mid-'70s for $345.97 (with a 10% discount), spent much of its existence in a safety deposit box and not on anyone's wrist. Thus, its condition was like that of a brand new watch, only this watch is worth around 200 times what it was worth upon original purchase.
As David learned in the segment, a no-fills version of the rare Rolex Oyster Cosmograph watch could score upwards of $400,000 at auction, and that's the number that knocked David's legs out and sent him tumbling backwards. The Antiques Roadshow guest thankfully didn't hurt himself as he might have in a pure unconscious faint, but his fall certainly didn't appear to be expected by anyone in the surrounding area.
In fact, there's a woman that walks into the frame just after that, clearly concerned about David's fall, but then walks away after she sees that everything is on the up and up.
Peter Planes wasn't even done, though. The $400,000 estimation wasn't even meant for a watch in the superb condition that David's was. That kind of a piece would fetch upwards of $500,000-$700,000 at an auction, considering David still had the boxes it was packaged in, the blank warranty card and paperwork (which are themselves worth a hefty sum for being blank), the original brochure and more. With that kind of money, he could afford, like, four seconds of a Super Bowl ad.
Though David didn't pull another pratfall upon hearing the even higher estimations, he did utter his good-humored disbelief with a word that wasn't safe for PBS audiences:
You gotta be fucking kidding me. [Laughs.]
During his time in the Air Force, David worked in explosive ordinance disposal, which involves finding unexploded landmines in former battlefields (among other things). It possibly a coincidence, then, that he had for so many years been sitting on an explosively lucrative item like that Rolex. Here's hoping David gets top dollar for his spotless watch, which is quite possibly the most valuable one of its kind on the planet...at least until someone actually puts it on.
Antiques Roadshow airs new episodes on PBS on Mondays at 8:00 p.m. ET. The episode featuring David will be reairing that day as well, for those who want to see what else was up for appraisals that day.
