Lost And Found

[Playbill]

Over thirty years ago some friends of mine were moving house. During the chaos of packing and removal the man's expensive wristwatch vanished. He made a claim on his insurance and was provided with a new replacement watch.

They are moving again and a couple of weeks ago when clearing out boxes of stuff not looked for many years, they came across the missing watch. It is mechanical and must be seized up as it does not work.

He says he should return it to the insurance company, but his wife says give it to to a grandson. Neither can remember which insurance company it was. If she does give it to a grandson it will need a complete overhaul and husband says repairer will note number and check lists of lost and stolen items.

Apart from the moral question, would a list still exist after all this time?

[boxtops]

If it's very expensive and was stored on a list of owners (perhaps e.g. Rolex) then it's possible - however, the insurance company paid out on it being "lost" which doesn't mean that someone else could not have "found" it. If you don't know which insurance company it was, IMO there is not a lot you can do about it now.

I am sure you could check on line to see if there is such a thing as an owner's register of watches of this make?

[VHG]

Similar thing happened to me about 30 years ago.

We moved house and when we got there certain things were missing (cant remember what). They were not valuable so we did not claim for them. We though the removal men had nicked them (they did try to nick our portable radio).

Later that year, near Christmas, we went to the loft to get down our artificial Christmas tree and found the missing things inside the box.

Good job we did not accuse the removal men or it could have got nasty.

[Playbill]

Thanks for the replies.

I know the watch he has, and it is a very nice one, but not a Rolex. I have just looked up the price of a new one and it is about ten or fifteen times what he says he remembers paying originally. I will speak to them this evening about whether he remembers anything about an owner's list.

I am glad I do not have to make the decision about what to do with it!

[woofgang]

When we moved here, when we unpacked we found the remains of the removal men's fish and chip lunch carefully wrapped and packed in a box!!

[joko]

i doubt after all this time any one will be checking lists for stolen watches - imagine how many watches must have gone missing over the last 30 years? let alone the last 100 years or so.
who is going to wade through such a list? and where is this list?

give it to your son. if by some chance they do seize it then hes in the same position as if you had given it to the inurance co. so hes lost nothing anyway.

over the years you must have had loads of watches - how can anyone be expected to remember the exact watch they had 30 years ago?

[Playbill]

It is not mine, it belongs to a friend. I phoned him just before and he can't remember anything about being on an owner's list. He was working in a different part of the country when he bought it and can only remember the shop was on a corner. That narrows it down a bit!

I have told him to take a chance and give it to his son or grandson, it will be better than having blazing row with his wife about it!

woofgang, were the fish and chips still warm?

[Iluvspikey]

Look at it this way all these year, the premiums you've paid - all that money you've shelled out to Insurance companies and never claimed - you've more than paid for the watch 10 times over I bet! And just say somebody DID contact you (whih I'm 99.99999 certain they wwon't, ) - just tell them the truth.