WW2 Stalag prisoner of war rolex watch to sell at Bonhams & Goodman - Australia
Published August 31st, 2006
A rare 1943 Rolex 3525 Oyster Chronograph watch purchased by Prisoner of War C.J. Nutting, a Corporal in the Royal Corps of Signals in the British Army during the Second World War, will be sold at Bonhams & Goodman in Australia on 11 September 2006. This follows the auction house’s world record-breaking sale of a Gallipoli Victoria Cross for £491,567 (AUS $1.2 million) in July 2006.
Corporal Nutting was captured by the Germans at Dunkirk in 1940 and transferred to Stalag Luft 3 in Poland, where he spent five years as a POW. Stalag was the camp made famous by the Steve McQueen film ‘The Great Escape.’ By happy coincidence, Bonhams & Butterfields, Bonhams & Goodman’s affiliated auction house in the USA, is to hold a sale of the estate of the late actor in November.
Hans Wilsdorf, founder of Rolex, learnt that upon capture, POWs had their watches confiscated. Having trained in London, Wilsdorf felt great sympathy toward the British prisoners, and created a scheme whereby British POWs could obtain a Rolex watch on the understanding that they did not need to pay for it until after the war. These watches have become known as ‘Prisoner of War Watches.’
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