Gardiner Houlgate has another watch auction coming up and the star of the show is a 1961 Rolex Submariner, with the 3-6-9 dial, which is estimated to fetch over £150,000. It’s got the original box and paperwork too, which is very unusual for a 60s Rolex as many people simply chucked that stuff away back then.

UPDATED: The watch sold to a collector based in Hong Kong for £210,000 by the way!

Several watch collections are being sold at this auction, which suggests that some old collectors are thinking now is the time to cash on a lifetime’s collecting and relocate to a country like Sweden where the fun Police won’t arrest you for singing Boheamian Rhapsody.

A Rolex Oyster Perpetual with a starting price of £1500 is very fair and if you’re hankering after your first Rolex then that could be the one. Having said that, this model from 1978 is in need of a clean and service, judging from the photos. No box or papers either.

Other rare stuff? Bulova Accutron, which is working. Plus a couple of Derby Swissonic digital quartz models. Will the early quartz models ever achieve the prices that mechanicls do? Probably not, but they do have their fans and for a few hundred quid you could get into the game.

There are two Jaeger le Coultre models that caught our eye; an 18K Day-Date gold automatic with a starting bid of £720 is tempting and a bumper automatic for about the same money is also excellent value. Ball watches are growing in popularlity so it will be interesting to see how much the Engineer II and Fireman Ionosphere make. The Fireman has the full set of paperwork and box with it too, again starting bid of just over £700.

There are military watches, modern Omega, Zenith, TAG, IWC, vintage pocket watches and more. Online bidding only of course, no actual physical auction.

More details here.