My local pawn shop manager knows I’m a watch guy and let me know yesterday they had this Rolex Datejust coming off pawn today.
I went over this morning and looked it over and ended up bringing it home.
It’s a little beat up and the Jubilee bracelet has a significant amount of stretch and two damaged center links. Despite that, it had all of the links and a nice clasp. The crystal was a scratchy mess and the case has a few marks but nothing terrible.
I would say the watch has been sitting for a long time because when I put it on my timegrapher at the pawn shop it was initially running 10 seconds fast but the longer it ran the better it got. After running for a few hours, it’s now running about 4 seconds fast. It will be interesting to see how it does after running for a few days.
I cleaned it up and hit the crystal with some Polywatch and a lot of elbow grease and I think it came out pretty good. I threw it on a Nato and I have to say I’m genuinely stoked how it looks. In the future, I’ll be sending the bracelet to Rolliworks for a rebuild and based on what the Timegrapher looks like I may have it serviced right away.