In 1974, a farmer lost a Rolex he had saved up for years to a greedy cow – now gets it back at the age of 95

A 95-year-old dairy farmer living in England lost his Rolex to a greedy cow 50 years ago. The Rolex strap was loose and it must have fallen into the grass while he was working in the field. The family thought the piece of jewelry was lost forever. But with the help of two experts, including a Twitch streamer, the man got his beloved watch back.

The cover image is a symbolic image: It is by el_duderino123 from Pixabay.

How did he lose the watch?

  • As the website “The Scottish Farmer” reports, dairy farmer James Steele lost his Rolex 50 years ago while working in the fields.
  • Although he searched for days, he was unable to find the watch in 1974. He suspected that a cow might have found and swallowed the watch, which had fallen into the grass. The strap had obviously come off.
  • He bought the watch, a Rolex Air-King Super Precision 5500, for 100 pounds sterling. The purchasing power of this sum would be equivalent to around €1,600 today. He earned the money by delivering milk for years. The farmer decided to buy a new Rolex and thought he would never find the old one again. As you can see from the pictures (via horolonimics), he still wears his “new” Rolex today.
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    Son hires experts to search for old coins on his land

    This is how the watch was found: For decades, the missing Rolex became a legend told by the farmer’s children.

    James Steele’s son, Andrew Steele, ultimately took over the farm. He decided to have his field searched for old coins because as a child he had discovered a coin from 1789 and had since developed a penchant for such historical artifacts.

    Andrew called in a metal hunting expert who had previously found old coins: Liam King.

    King searched the field repeatedly over a period of 9 months, but was unable to find any coins. Instead, he found many other things, including the legendary clock that had been abandoned forever.

    Cow apparently really ate the watch

    The clock was no longer in good condition. It is actually believed that the clock was swallowed by a cow and passed through all four stomachs in the ruminant’s digestive tract, then ended up in the field that was ploughed every three years.

    The clock had stopped at 12:40 and had now turned completely green.

    The watch was not in good condition:

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    Dutch Twitch streamer restores the Rolex

    What happened to the watch? Andrew, the farmer’s son, brought in another expert: Kalle Slaap, a Dutch specialist in the restoration of mechanical watches and a content creator on Twitch and YouTube.

    When the expert heard about the watch, he took it into his workshop in Grootschermer and worked for 2 months on restoring the Rolex. The progress of the repair can be followed on his YouTube channel. The 5th update on the “Rolex that was eaten by a cow” has now been published.

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    Farms and technology only seem to not go together so well at first glance. In June 2023, we reported on MeinMMO about a story in which a man hid 2,000 computers in a barn, which he then sold on eBay: A man hid 2,200 computers in a barn for 23 years, now he is selling the devices on eBay for 100 euros

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