Horolonomics

I have to admit that, until today, I never really knew why Colonel Sanders, the infamous purveyor of fried chicken, was a colonel. I think I believed Sanders may have served in a branch of the military and earned that rank. Turns out I was very confused on that point. It probably would have been more accurate to describe Sanders' "rank" as one held by many "Kentucky Colonels." That type of colonelship is bestowed by the governor of Kentucky as an honorific for "noteworthy accomplishments, contributions to civil society, remarkable deeds, or outstanding service to the community, state, or nation," (source: Wikipedia).

Harland David Sanders, the founder of globally-known brand Kentuck Fried Chicken (KFC), was twice commissioned as a Kentucky colonel. In 1935 Governor Ruby Lafoon dubbed Sanders a colonel and later, in 1950, he was "re-commissioned" by Governor Lawrence Wetherby. At this point you might be asking yourself, "what does all this talk of colonelcy have to do with watches?" So let's get to that (and if you did ask yourself that question then I am impressed that you know the word "colonelcy" because I don't think I'd ever encountered it before I started working on this post).

News broke recently that a property in Shelbyville, Kentucky with ties to Colonel Sanders is on the auction block. The Claudia Sanders Dinner House and Blackwood Hall served as KFC's first headquarters.

Sanders lived in the hall from 1959-1984. In 1974 the Settle family bought the property from the Sanders family. According to one of Sanders' decendents, the property sale included some of Colonel Sander's possessions. The auction includes those items and, amongst those items, are three watches. According to the lot descriptions, two of them belonged to Colonel Sanders.

Let's start with the last watch lot in the auction because I think there is less confusion there. Lot 9 is a Swiss-made Mondia Stellaris automatic watch with day and date complications.

Advertisements for this reference were published by Swiss media as early as 1965 and another blog claims this reference was released in 1964. A watch dealer has an Arabic-language version of this reference currently priced at $299 and the Sanders auction indicates that the current high bid is $100. The catalogue does not provide an estimate for value. There is a photo of Sanders holding one of his famous buckets and on his wrist is a Speidel-banded watch which matches the style of the band on the auction lot. So I think there are decent odds this watch was worn by Sanders.

But lot 7 is where there is real confusion. When I consulted the catalogue a few days ago, the lot title read "Colonel Harland Sanders' Personal Rado DiaStar Wristwatch with Original Registration Card and Box" (at this link you will find an archive copy of the original lot description). I initially found this lot to be the most exciting because Rado is a more well-known brand and the catalogue seemed to exude confidence that this was an important timepiece for Sanders. Indeed, legendary watch spotter niccoloy has posted a spot of a Rado on Sanders' wrist. The ephemera in the lot were also encouraging. There is a box, hang tags, and a warranty card filled out with details. Everything seemed correct.

But when I looked at the close-up photos I realized something was off. The watch featured in the lot was a Gruen, not a Rado.

In fact, a quick search revealed that a Rado DiaStar alleged to belong to Sanders sold for $2,750 during a 2019 auction by Heritage Auctions. The lot description for that sale claims that Sanders gifted the watch to his driver. So, it appeared to me that there was an error in lot 7's description.

I reached out to the auction house to ask if they would like to comment on the situation. After an initial reply, they stopped communicating with me. But when I went back to the catalogue just before publishing this post, the lot's description had been changed. It now reads "Colonel Sanders' Vintage Gruen Watch (working) with Rado Box and Registration Card Bearing Colonel Harland Sanders' Name." The lot description also cautions bidders to carefully consider the lack on congruity between the box, papers and watch brands. So, I guess my efforts have helped settle some confusion and clarify which brand of watch is up for auction in lot 7.

At the end of the day, my hope is that the winner of the Rado from the 2019 auction discovers that the box and papers corresponding to the watch are likely up for sale in a little over two weeks. For historical purposes it is worthwhile to have the watch reunited with its ephemera. And, all of this digging into auctions provides some guidelines for how the Mondia Stellaris with provenance might be valued. Run-of-the-mill vintage Rado DiaStars sell for somewhere around $250 (at least according to sales results on eBay). With a realized price of $2,750 for the Rado with Sanders provenance, we get a 11x premium. There are not many "comps" for the Mondia Stellaris but my estimate is that, absent provenance, it is worth a little less than a standard vintage Rado DiaStar. A Mondia Stellaris is worth, perhaps, $200 (the version above, with days in Arabic, is no doubt rarer and probably worth a little more). This would suggest that, with provenance, the Colonel Sanders Mondia might be fairly valued at $2,200.

Wrapping up, I have only now realized all the complexities surrounding Colonel Sanders and his property. There is an account on Instagram allegedly run by one of Sanders' decendents and the information he posts hints at the many twists and turns in Sanders' personal and professional life. That descendent has some wishes for what might happen to the Sanders memorabilia that is up for auction this summer. My hope is that at least some of those wishes come true.

---

My book on the history of Rolex marketing is now available on Amazon! It debuted as the #1 New Release in its category. You can find it here.

You can subscribe to Horolonomics updates here.