“I brought my Rolex GMT Master that I bought 55 years ago … I bought it in Germany in Zweibrücken, at a PX [Post Exchange] when I was in the Army over there. I bought the watch just before I came back to stateside.”

“My sergeant recommended that before I came back to the states ‘buy a Rolex watch’ … he thought it was the best watch ever made, and he said make sure you get one before you go home and this is the one I liked.”

This is how the following appraisal — televised for the popular PBS show “Antiques Roadshow” — begins as a United States military veteran hands over one of his old timepiece to expert Peter Planes in Tucson, Arizona.

The maker, as it were, is a very familiar and ritzy name and the particular model is from 1960. The same year John Fitzgerald Kennedy entered the White House and kicked off Camelot.

He snagged the personal clock for about $120 then (his salary in the Army at the time was “just under $100 a month — he also procured a watch for his father, but that’s auxiliary to the story).

View the video below to see how much it’s worth now. We predict that, just like the old vet, you’ll never see it coming …

Look at that face! It’s shock, but even more so, it’s as if he sees — in that instant — the great big lucrative burden the watch has suddenly become. Perhaps he’s afraid the valuable will cripple his life of modest means and sensible living? Maybe corrupt his expectations and inflate his punctured idea of materialism and how it equates to happiness?

Also, smart sergeant, huh? Prescient.

Then again, throughout the years, military officers have become renowned for protecting a valuable watch at all costs.

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