It's the little stories of history that always fascinate me.

[gridlore]

For sale: Rolex sent by mail order to Stalag Luft III

A mail order watch bought by a British prisoner of war and delivered to him in the Nazis’ notorious Stalag Luft III camp is expected to fetch more than £66,000 at auction tomorrow.

The story of the elegant Rolex watch ordered in 1943 by Corporal Clive James Nutting casts light on an extraordinary commercial enterprise that defied the disruption of war.

The camp, in what is now Zagan, Poland, was made famous by the 1963 film The Great Escape, which told the story of an imaginative but ultimately ill-fated breakout.

Corporal Nutting helped to organise the escape and later advised the film-makers. He ordered the stainless steel Rolex Oyster 3525 Chronograph, which cost the equivalent of £1,200, directly from the founder of Rolex, Hans Wilsdorf, in Geneva in 1943.

Mr Wilsdorf, a German, immediately arranged for the timepiece to be sent to the camp and, in a letter to Corporal Nutting, even apologised for the possible delay, making it plain that his unlikely customer should not “even think of settlement” until the war was over.

Wow. The image of a POW camp is always bored, dispirited soldiers waiting around to be liberated or exchanged, but her in the story of one watch we learn of a whole different side. Prisoners mail-ordering watches (and probably other things, with their captors' permission) and creating a small community. As a huge fan of fine timepieces, I'd love to be at that auction. Knowing Rolex I'll bet the thing still keeps perfect time.

I think my favorite part is the seller refusing to even discuss payment until the war ended. You don't see gentility like that anymore.

Here's the watch

Comments

[claidheamhmor]

That's pretty cool! It must have been before Wilsdorf moved to London (or did he move from London to Geneva?). I can't remember. As for keeping perfect time, I'd be amazed if a Rolex kept perfect time; it may have been better than other mechanical watches of the time though.