A new book, to be officially announced tomorrow (Oct. 16), is likely to draw considerable interest from watch collectors, and Rolex enthusiasts in particular. Its 344 hardcover pages offer an unusually intimate view of one of the more significant private collections of vintage references. Titled Not For Sale, the hefty coffee-table volume presents 134 vintage Rolex watches from the collection of Paul Altieri, founder and CEO of Bob’s Watches. The selection is only a portion of his holdings, but it is a considered one. The watches featured are valued at approximately $10 million, and each was chosen for its rarity, unusual details, provenance or the story behind its acquisition.
While demand for previously owned timepieces from all high-end makers has soared over the past decade, Rolex remains one of the world’s most sought-after brands. Certain rare vintage models can command hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions, at auction. Altieri has spent decades buying and selling predominantly Rolex watches, yet the pieces in this book are the ones he has chosen to purchase and keep for himself.
In an exclusive interview with Observer, Altieri explained that he never actually set out to build a collection of this magnitude. It happened almost by accident. As vintage Rolex watches came through his business, certain pieces caught his attention, whether for their unusual dials, their condition or simply because they were unlike anything he already owned. “I would fall in love with a watch,” he said. “I would put it aside and I would just keep putting certain watches aside until my collection grew and grew.” Today, Altieri’s collection numbers somewhere around 300 watches, with the vast majority by Rolex. Choosing which references made their way into the book was no easy task. “It’s like picking your favorite kid,” he quipped.
Among the most extraordinary watches featured is the one shown larger than life on the book’s cover: a gold Rolex Daytona “John Player Special” Ref. 6241, dating to approximately 1969. With its black exotic dial, champagne-gold subdials and 14-karat yellow-gold case, the watch earned its nickname from its resemblance to the black-and-gold Lotus Formula One racing cars sponsored by John Player Special in the 1970s.
According to Altieri, fewer than 15 examples have surfaced publicly at auction over the past decade—he calls it the “grail of all grails.” It is the most expensive watch in his collection, and he doesn’t wear it very often. “I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that I wear it; I feel funny wearing old gold watches,” he admitted.
But what makes Not For Sale so compelling isn’t the monetary value of the timepieces but their particularities. Some are fascinating precisely because of what they cannot do, like the Rolex Submariner Ref. 6204, dating to approximately 1953, that doesn’t tell time at all. It is a salesman’s sample, made without a movement so that Rolex representatives could show the watch to retail jewelers without carrying a working example. Only a handful of such display pieces from that era are known to exist.
And then there are the watches whose backstories are as fascinating as the timepieces themselves. One particularly compelling example is a Rolex GMT-Master Ref. 1675 purchased in 1977 by U.S. Air Force pilot David Bartell for $440. He even put it on layaway until his next paycheck. Less than a year later, while flying an F-105 Thunderchief, Bartell experienced an aircraft emergency during takeoff and was forced to eject at approximately 100 feet. The watch survived the impact, enduring roughly 25 Gs, and Bartell returned to flying the following day. Today, the watch still bears his name engraved on the caseback and his pilot’s wings on the clasp.
Another remarkable story involves a rare Rolex Submariner Ref. 6200, originally given by a Navy admiral to his Seabee commander in the 1950s. The watch passed down through the family until the commander’s grandson eventually decided to sell it to Altieri to help pay for his three children’s college educations. Altieri promised he would never let it go.
Then there is the almost unbelievable story of a Rolex Dato-Compax Ref. 6236, nicknamed the Jean-Claude Killy, found by a 14-year-old boy in the rough at Pebble Beach. After nobody claimed the watch, the boy kept it, later trading it to his brother for a skateboard. He eventually bought it back for an eight-track player and wore it for decades, never realizing its significance. When Altieri finally encountered the watch, he explained to its then-owner that it was worth approximately a quarter of a million dollars.
For Altieri, the history of a watch can be as important as the watch itself. “When they have a story behind them, it’s like one plus one equals five,” he said, adding that acquiring them can be surprisingly emotional. “I’ve had many, many people cry in my lobby.” When owners struggle to part with family heirlooms, he sometimes offers them the opportunity to buy back their watches at the same price if they change their minds. Not one, he pointed out, has ever taken him up on the offer.
For years, most of Altieri’s private collection has been tucked away in a vault. The idea of sharing it publicly first took shape in his mind when a watch-industry curator suggested organizing exhibitions in New York and Los Angeles. Those exhibitions never materialized, but the thought stayed with him, and he ultimately decided that if he wasn’t going to sell the watches, he needed to find some way to share them with collectors and aficionados. Many had never been seen publicly before.
The book became a way of sharing them with the world—a labor of love that took a decade of extensive photography, research and design. Originally, Altieri planned to include 200 watches, but the book would have been too unwieldy. Even with 134 timepieces, the finished volume—which is divided into chapters by collection and specialty—weighs approximately nine pounds.
On its face, Not For Sale offers an inside look at one man’s collection of coveted vintage Rolex watches and the details that make them so special, but look deeper, and it becomes a book about who else owned these watches, why they sold them and the remarkable circumstances that brought the watches into Altieri’s hands.
More in watches
