The clock is ticking on a rare piece of Second World War memorabilia currently up for sale on our eBay site.
The WWII German pilot’s Stowa B-Uhr Flieger watch was discovered in a bag of jewellery at our Donation Centre.
And once its historic importance was recognised, it was placed for sale on the eBay site - where bids have already reached £1,020.
“One of our Donation Centre team pulled it out of a jewellery donation and thought it looked interesting,” said our E-commerce Manager Shaun Beeden.
“We did some research and discovered that this is the watch that was given to Luftwaffe pilots at the start of every mission and was then handed back when they were home safe, which makes it even more rare.”
The watch has a grey metal case with a large onion crown to enable it to be Operated while wearing gloves.
Its large 55mm case would also have made it easier to read in a dark plane and to be worn over a heavy leather flying jacket,
It is engraved on the outside of the case, with FL23883 on the side, and the Serial No 5789 on the back, while the inside back of the case is marked Gerat Nr. 127.
The watch, which retains half of its original strap and does have some scratches, is not working at the moment but looks in good condition and may simply require servicing.
“It’s inevitably not in pristine condition and it could literally have gone into the bin but luckily we have some eagle eyed people on our team who are great at spotting this sort of thing and the more we researched it, the more we realised how rare and exciting this watch is,” said Shaun.
“It’s possible that it was taken from a pilot who crash landed and was taken prisoner but there’s no way of knowing what really happened because we don’t even know who donated it.”
The auction for the watch will reach its climax at 7pm on Sunday and many more bids are expected to come in before then.
To take a look or make a bid click here