In the case of sensational watches, it seems Paul Newman, Mr. Hollywood Legend, is my timepiece doppelgänger. An upcoming Sotheby’s occasion is trigger for a well timed comparability.
Paul Newman and I’ve lots in frequent.
Newman is a legend, an iconic determine in Hollywood historical past, an Academy Award-winning actor, acclaimed director, and famous philanthropist who helped outline the male lead in movement footage from the mid-Nineteen Fifties by the twenty first century.
And I … am none of that. Though I did have the lead function in a highschool manufacturing of “The Elves and The Shoemaker.” The PTO publication known as it “riveting.”
Newman was additionally famously good-looking, with piercing, baby-blue eyes. Mine are brown.
However none of that issues. What actually connects us is that Newman and I each have had cool watches in our lives.
Ron Galella Assortment/Getty Photographs
His cool watch was a Rolex Daytona. It sold for $17.8 million at auction in 2017, essentially the most of any watch in historical past. My cool watch? I nonetheless have it in my prime dresser drawer. It’s in a field. With my identify on it. Written in Magic Marker by my mother. Fifty years in the past.
OK, so Newman’s Rolex Daytona, essentially the most prized watch on the planet, is barely extra « precious » than the Timex I received from my dad and mom when, in opposition to all odds, I graduated from eighth grade. I am going to grant him that. However the field with my identify on it in black Magic Marker? It’s lined with a deep purple velvet. It’s plush.
In the best lighting – darkish – you possibly can even name the field luxurious. And for those who do name the field luxurious, nicely then, I simply may be underestimating the worth of the entire watch bundle.
Courtesy Paul Kennedy
Similar to my watch, Newman’s has sentimental worth. His 1968 mannequin Rolex was a present from Joanne Woodward, his spouse of fifty years, when the actor received hooked on racing automobiles. Immediately, a Rolex Daytona will set you again a minimum of $30,000. However the fashions of the ’60s and ’70s value about $250. They have been little greater than timekeepers for gear heads like Newman, that includes a built-in stopwatch for timing laps and a tachymeter for calculating velocity.
Very similar to my watch field, Newman’s Rolex Daytona has writing on it, albeit not in black Magic Marker. Engraved on the again of his watch was a message from his spouse: “Drive Fastidiously Me.”
Courtesy Phillips
Newman’s watch has been hailed as “legendary” and “uncommon” and “superb.”
My watch has been hailed as “good.”
To be honest, what actually units my vintage Timex other than different watches of the period is its extensive, so-ugly-it’s-cool, Nineteen Seventies “real leather-based” watchband. The band is blue, a colour you don’t typically see within the real leather-based watchband world. What’s extra, the watchband has a gold buckle, which in all probability isn’t product of “actual” gold. In fact, I’m no treasured metals skilled, so I could possibly be mistaken.
Anyway, I nonetheless have my watch and Paul Newman, my timepiece doppelgänger, doesn’t. And that’s the purpose. I’m holding on to my Timex till the market is good to promote, which could possibly be this summer time.
Right here’s the factor: Sotheby’s recently announced that in June it would auction off 300 items from the life of Newman and Woodward.
Darlene Hammond/Hulton Archive/Getty Photographs
The collection of gross sales will embody things like shackles from the movie “Cool Hand Luke”; a script from the 1963 comedy “A New Type of Love”; and the marriage costume that Woodward wore the day the couple married in 1958.
Newman died in 2008 on the age of 83. Woodward, 93, a terrific expertise in her personal proper, has saved a personal life since she was recognized with Alzheimer’s illness in 2007.
The Sotheby’s gross sales promise to supply a uncommon window into the private {and professional} lives of the famed couple, devoted philanthropists, and darn good salad dressing makers.
Jacques Pavlovsky/Sygma by way of Getty Photographs
The auctions can have every little thing: movie and leisure memorabilia, autographed scripts, awards, film props and wardrobe.
One factor the Sotheby’s gross sales seemingly gained’t embody? A basic Timex with a real leather-based watchband.
I’m holding onto this blue-banded magnificence just a bit bit longer. In fact, if Sotheby’s does come calling, groveling, on the lookout for the proper timeless treasure to place the Newman occasion excessive, I’ll should hear.
It’s the least I can do for a fellow Paul.
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