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King Farouk Of Egypt Watch


wadan

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There was a guy on The Antique's Roadshow who brought in a 1914 Patek complication pocket watch that was given to his grandfather as an industry tribute gift. The appraiser said it was the most spectacular watch he had ever held in his hands. I don't think the owner had a clue that a Patek Phillipe complication munute repeater was worth a fortune!

Unfortunately, there's nothing like this in my family time capsule.

Link http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/roadshow/ser...paul/index.html

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In that condition, with the box, 250K is a lowball estimate.

-O

Yeah, I agree, in fact, when I was watching it with my wife before they disclosed the price, I said "that's a half million dollar piece at least". It's not as rare as say a 2.5 million dollar GP TGB tourbillon but the fact that it and the box, certificate, spare crystals and mainsprings were pristine, I would think the PP museum would pay a lot more that $250,000 as well.

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Ooohh Aaaahh lovely. Can't see my self using a pocket watch truthfully. But these two look spectacular. The first one looks a lot like a watch one of the collecters was offering recently advertised as "manual w/ most complications" or something along those lines. I'm too lazy to go look for the link, please forgive me.

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King Farouk was not only King of Egypt and one of the world's wealthiest men and a collector of many fine things, but he was also a well known kleptomaniac and a very talented pick pocket. During his lifetime his countrymen gave him the nick name of "the Thief of Cairo." Once at a state dinner, he stole Winston Churchill's beloved Brequet pocketwatch. By the time Churchill realized the watch was missing, Farouk had already retired for the evening. When one of the king's aides heard about the theft, he went to Farouk's bedroom, retrieved the watch, returned it to Churchill and blamed a busboy. I wonder how Farouk got this cool VC.

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Ooohh Aaaahh lovely. Can't see my self using a pocket watch truthfully. But these two look spectacular. The first one looks a lot like a watch one of the collecters was offering recently advertised as "manual w/ most complications" or something along those lines. I'm too lazy to go look for the link, please forgive me.

You see, what you do, is you buy this pocket watch for 250K, take it to a local jeweller, and have 'em weld lugs onto the edges of the case to make it a wrist watch. You can do this,a nd it won't affect the value of the watch at all. Really....

Actually I only bring this up as there has been a flood of watches from Eastern European countries made by placing large calibre pocket watch movements into wrist watch cases. You can find them all over eBay; I have actually considered buying a 47mm IWC which has been floating around for a while there.

-O

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  • 1 month later...
King Farouk was not only King of Egypt and one of the world's wealthiest men and a collector of many fine things, but he was also a well known kleptomaniac and a very talented pick pocket. During his lifetime his countrymen gave him the nick name of "the Thief of Cairo." Once at a state dinner, he stole Winston Churchill's beloved Brequet pocketwatch. By the time Churchill realized the watch was missing, Farouk had already retired for the evening. When one of the king's aides heard about the theft, he went to Farouk's bedroom, retrieved the watch, returned it to Churchill and blamed a busboy. I wonder how Farouk got this cool VC.

I was JUST about to post this very point. Mind you, Queen Mary -- the present queen's grandma -- also had the odd reputation of being a klepto, but not in the sense that she would actually pilfer stuff (including ormolu clocks, by the way), but because she would stay in front of a piece she wanted until she was given it, or was allowed to purchase it dead cheap. So, who knows.

King Farouk is a very scuzzy historical character (he once tried to seduce/rape Queen Frederika of Greece when King Paul was in the next room!), but one who was an horologist-extraordinaire. I saw his watch collection in a museum in Cairo, when I was a kid. Maybe an Egyptian member can remember the name of said museum. :)

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Seriously who wants a watch that say s DIM on it :bangin:

;) (Tongues in cheek....)

..I truly love this kind of timepieces thanks for bringing this wonder watch to the surface once again :thumbsupsmileyanim:

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