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DMH's Rolex to Auction

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HealeyRick

HealeyRick

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For the many admirers of British automotive visionary Donald Healey, Bonhams has a coveted piece of his personal history coming up for auction: Healey’s vintage Rolex wristwatch.
The 9ct gold Rolex Striped Prince that Healey wore for much of his life (1898-1988) will be offered for the first time during Bonhams’s Bond Street Motor Car Sale in London on December 6. On the reverse side of the rectangular watch is the inscription, “Donald Healey, Perranporth,” in honor of his birthplace of Perranporth, Cornwall.
The Healey watch is a Rolex Striped Prince with an engraved backHealey purchased the watch during the 1930s to mark his success in rally racing, such as winning seven Glacier Cups in the Alpine Trials.
“Donald was justly proud of such rallying success,” his grandson, Peter Healey, said in a Bonhams news release. “The Rolex was a reward to himself.”
The watch has been kept in the family through the generations and now is being offered directly by his descendents. Bonhams’ pre-auction value estimate is £8,000 to £12,000 ($12,400 to $18,500).
Donald Healey is best-remembered for development of one of Britain’s most popular sports car brands, Austin-Healey. Before founding his own automotive company in 1945, he worked for Triumph, where he led development of the Triumph Gloria and designed the supercharged straight-eight Triumph Dolomite, which he drove in the Alpine Trial of 1936.
With his own company, he initially created Healey cars, and he collaborated with other manufacturers on such projects as the Nash-Healey. In the 1950s and ’60s, he developed Austin-Healey sports cars, and in the ’70s, the Jensen-Healey.
“The Bonhams Bond Street Motor Car Sale presents a fantastic selection of motor cars, including two of the most important Austin-Healeys ever offered,” James Knight, Bonhams Group Motoring Director, said in the news release. “To offer the Rolex Striped Prince, worn by the great man himself, plus his much-loved everyday car – the– and the 1959 Works Rally 3000 ‘SMO 746’ is simply extraordinary.”
For more information about the Bonhams sale, see the auction website.
 
Rick, between the news of DMH's 100S coupe and his Rolex watch, you're giving the folks here a great preview of the November issue of HEALEY MARQUE!

But can you also guess which cars are for sale in the classified ads? ;)

RT
 
Reid,

If I could only guess which cars were going to go up in value! Hope I'm not stealing the Marque's thunder. Tough for the printed word to keep up in the electronic age. I have my google news feed set up with a personalization for "Austin-Healey" and try to pass along the more interesting items. If only it didn't spew forth all the stories about the rugby player.
It will be interesting to see what the watch sells for. It's a bit battered and I'm not sure I'd want to wear it without having it refurbished, but I'm not familiar enough with vintage watches to know if that would hurt the value. From what I remember of seeing Donald in his trips to US, he wasn't wearing this watch then.
With the Healey records that have been offered to Warwick and now this watch, it seems like the family is relinquishing some of the mementos. Hopefully an enthusiast will get some enjoyment from it.
 
HealeyRick said:
Reid,

If I could only guess which cars were going to go up in value! Hope I'm not stealing the Marque's thunder. Tough for the printed word to keep up in the electronic age. I have my google news feed set up with a personalization for "Austin-Healey" and try to pass along the more interesting items. If only it didn't spew forth all the stories about the rugby player.
It will be interesting to see what the watch sells for. It's a bit battered and I'm not sure I'd want to wear it without having it refurbished, but I'm not familiar enough with vintage watches to know if that would hurt the value. From what I remember of seeing Donald in his trips to US, he wasn't wearing this watch then.
With the Healey records that have been offered to Warwick and now this watch, it seems like the family is relinquishing some of the mementos. Hopefully an enthusiast will get some enjoyment from it.
Click to expand...

There was an old Rolex featured on Pawn Stars a while back. According to Rick Harrison, restoring them definitely reduces value--faces, hands, etc. often get replaced--although if it isn't running getting it repaired usually increases value. They see a lot of items, guns especially, where a DPO figured it would be a good idea to wire-wheel the rust off and in so doing removed serial numbers, rounded off edges, etc. It definitely reduces value (remember the rough 'survivor' Gull Wing that sold for more than a fresh resto a while back?). I think the premise is that--the value of an unrestored piece is obvious for historical reasons--if you buy a 'survivor' you get to chose whether to restore or not.

Moderator Reid wrote an interesting piece on the value of 'patina' a while ago.
 
Pretty good__if not amazing__results on both those DMH lots (including the coupe). If there was any doubt before, now we know there're Healey enthusiasts out there with some deep pockets!

Those were however, unique and one of a kind items, but at least two (>2) closely agreed on their worth.
 
Pretty good__if not amazing__results on both those DMH lots (including the coupe). If there was any doubt before, now we know there're Healey enthusiasts out there with some deep pockets!

Well yeah they deep cuz we ain't got no bottoms in em any more we went broke fixin up the ones we got.---:highly_amused:
 
"Oh, this? It used to be Donald's." :jester:

Rick: they gonna think you talkin bout Donald Duck.:highly_amused:
 
There is an English TV program shown here in Australia titled Antiques Roadshow. A recent episode had a discussion about a vintage Cartier watch. It had been inspected in an earlier show and was in very poor condition. The valuer had suggested that it be sent to Cartier for restoration. The latter show inspected the watch after restoration. It was quite unrecognisable but still was valued much higher than pre restoration.
 
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