A Rolex for $150, Now Worth $120,000 or More

Fred Holman is a retired Montessori school owner and administrator in New Jersey, and before that career, he was a bass player who toured and recorded with progressive/folk-rock acts including Jerry Jeff Walker and McKendree Spring. Not long ago, Fred’s wife, Cynthia, was watching a CBS News Sunday Morning segment about last September’s RollieFest, the sporadic Rolex collector meetup in New York City. In the clip, one collector pointed to a watch that could fetch $8 million.

“You have a Rolex, don’t you?” Cynthia asked Fred. “It might be worth something.”

Holman did indeed have a Rolex. In the summer of 1969 he was traveling in Switzerland with his then wife, Donna, just after they’d married. “At the time, I really liked Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels,” he said. “There were all these references to his Rolex watch. I thought, ‘We’re in Zurich. I just want to see them, how they are priced.’ ” The pair went into a jewelry shop, where they were shown a tray of Rolex Milgauss watches with whimsical seconds hands shaped like lightning bolts. The Ref. 6541 is “a very understated watch,” Holman told us. “The minute hand and hour hand are just pointers.”

Rolex discontinued the Milgauss line in 2023 because they’d never been very popular. But, according to lore, they had been requested by scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Working around powerful magnetic fields, they needed a timepiece that could withstand them. Rolex built one with a soft metal cover around the movement to protect it from being affected.

“We really didn’t know what the Milgauss was about until later on,” Holman said. “It just seemed like a sturdy and good watch.” But he didn’t buy it that day. Shortly after the couple left the store, however, Donna made an excuse and secretly doubled back to buy one using three $50 American Express Travelers Cheques. She gave Holman the watch at Christmas back in the US.

“I must have worn it for another 30 years or so,” Holman wrote us. “It was always on me. It was just something that made me feel complete.” He toured with the watch as a musician and can be seen wearing it in the art for a McKendree Spring album.

“I used to take it in to have it serviced at Rolex on Fifth Avenue. I remember the last time I went in, in the late ’80s, early ’90s. The technician came out of the back and said, ‘Never get rid of this watch,’ ” Holman recalled. The watch then went into a safe. “I just didn’t want to have it stolen on some whimsical trip in

Manhattan. I stopped wearing it, and then cellphones came along and all of that.”

After Cynthia nudged Holman to look into it in November, he discovered that a mint-condition Milgauss had recently sold for $2.5 million. So he reached out to a couple of auction houses to inquire about his own model’s value. He sent the emails on a Friday; the next Tuesday he was having lunch with Paul Boutros, the deputy chairman and head of watches for the Americas at Phillips.

“To find an original owner of a 6541 Milgauss, it’s rare!” Boutros says—and he’s seen almost everything. “I can’t recall us at Phillips ever taking in an all-original from the original owner. At the same time, it comes with the original chronometer certificate and original invoice. I’ve never seen this! We love this kind of well-worn and used watch.”

Phillips will sell the beloved Milgauss at the New York Watch Auction: X, taking place June 8-9. It will carry an estimate of $120,000 to $240,000. Before then it will travel the world with other top watches from the late spring sale, visiting Phillips clients from Hong Kong to Geneva. “The idea that this watch can take a world tour as a victory lap—for me—is very, very heartwarming,” Holman said.