Ronny Chieng: Seiko, Omega Seamaster & Rolex Watch Collection
Watch
APPRAISER:
You brought three watches in that I gather are all special to you.
GUEST:
This watch, what happened was I was at home during the pandemic and I watched the Bruce Lee documentary, Be Water. It was very inspiring. And so it kind of renewed my interest in Bruce Lee. I was always a fan. Let me name drop as much as I can here. I know famous people. One of the famous people I know is Daniel Dae Kim, legendary Asian American actor. He tells me he's got a watch guy who specializes in vintage Seikos, specifically the Bruce Lee stuff. So he goes, "Hey, that's actually a watch that Bruce Lee supposedly wore." Immediately, I was like, "I-I need... I gotta have this watch."
APPRAISER:
There's many different versions of this watch. So what differentiates this one to make it the Bruce Lee model? Well, we're pretty sure that
on his, instead of showing the day of the week in English, it's in Chinese.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
So it's the Hong Kong dial.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
That's the one everybody agrees that he had. Now, his probably didn't have the five sports, but it's as close as you can get to having Bruce Lee's watch.
GUEST:
Do you hear that people? Thank you.
APPRAISER:
You bought this not too long ago. How much did you pay?
GUEST:
I think I paid around $1,400.
APPRAISER:
All right. Value-wise, what I think...
GUEST:
I don't wanna know... (makes loud noises) Okay, hit... hit me with it.
APPRAISER:
$1,500 in today's market.
GUEST:
Sure, anything positive, I'll take it.
APPRAISER:
The watch in the middle, tell us about this one.
GUEST:
My dad had this big bag of garbage Omegas, so I took that bag and I went to my watch guy in Malaysia, I was like, "Hey, can you see what... what can you repair of any of this?" (laughing): And this is the only one that came out of a bag of like eight watches.
APPRAISER:
Here you have a Seamaster. You have a rather fancy dial. A lot of them are plain. If you open it up, you look at the movement number,
when you look at the serial number, and the watch comes up, 1971, 1972. It's a little hard to see, but there's some wear. I can see the plating wearing off on top, so that tells us it's gold filled, not gold.
GUEST:
Okay, that's bad, okay.
APPRAISER:
Price-wise, on a retail level, all fixed up, $500 today.
GUEST:
That's huge!
APPRAISER:
Is that huge?
GUEST:
Are you kidding me? Yeah.
APPRAISER:
Do you remember what you spent to repair it and overhaul it?
GUEST:
To repair this? It wasn't that much, it would be like $100, maybe.
APPRAISER:
Your third watch.
GUEST:
This is the classic "playing with your dad's watch as a kid before you know what watches are" watch. This is the one that was always around the house. I remember it used to be so much bigger in your hands when you held it, it was like, it's massive. My dad had a very interesting career in that he came from very humble origins in Malaysia, and he became a corporate executive. And when he retired, he opened a farm. He retired to do hard labor, and he was never happier in his life. Because he opened a farm, he stopped wearing the watch. I remember asking him, "Hey, whatever happened to that Rolex?" And he's like, "Oh yeah, it's just in the back." So he gave it to me and he told me he bought it in Hong Kong. I just imagine the kind of person he was in his 30s in Hong Kong, making money, being a businessman, kind of living the dream a bit. And at that time he must have been really feeling himself, because he's not the guy to buy fancy watches.
APPRAISER:
When this watch came out, it was getting away from those, those tool watches that were meant for race car drivers and skin divers, and it was Rolex's attempt in the early '70s to make a lifestyle watch. I looked up the serial number. This one comes up 1984. For a long time, people only wanted all-steel Rolexes. They didn't want gold. Today, it's just the opposite. So we're seeing a big resurgence in these watches, and it's instantly recognizable.
GUEST:
Yeah, he said it was like, "You wear it because if you're ever in trouble, you can trade it for your life" or something.
APPRAISER (laughs): So value-wise, if you had to go buy that watch that year today, $5,000.
GUEST:
Whoa! That's huge. How much will my dad have spent on this?
APPRAISER:
He dropped a grand on it, for sure.
GUEST:
That's crazy. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks for... Thanks for sharing my dad's memories.
Appraisal Details
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