When Robin Brown purchased a drawer full of bone-handled cutlery at auction in Darlington Point, he paid $5 and thought little more of it.
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But, hidden among the drawer’s contents, the 58-year-old found a broken gold pocket watch, believed to have been the possession of Henry Baylis, Wagga’s first police magistrate.
“It had broken glass and one hand missing, but it was obviously something that would have been pretty special,” said the 58-year-old from Griffith.
“Having a gentleman’s watch like that would have been very expensive, just for the fact that it had to be shipped out from London. It would have taken a long time.”
Dating to the 1880s, the watch has spanned a journey through the literal annals of time, ever since it came into Mr Brown’s hands 20 years ago.
“I started looking into it, and found out it has a lot of history,” Mr Brown said.
“The casing was made in Scotland, the mechanisms assembled in Switzerland, and it was assembled in London.”
The inscription on the front – that of Hunter Bros, Wagga, Murrumbidgee – attracted Mr Brown’s eye to begin with, but it was what was written inside the casing that has generated most interest.
“Inside the back casing it’s polished silver and you can just make out that it says ‘Baylis’,” said Mr Brown.
“It may be one of his sons, I don’t know, but it may be the Baylis that was the first police magistrate in Wagga.”
Returning the watch to its former functions proved a task for Mr Brown.
“I’ve had it cleaned up and fixed, the glass has been replaced but the hand was the biggest problem,” he said.
“I ended up having have it made.”
As for how the watch came to reside inside a cutlery drawer at least 155km north-west of its owner, the mystery remains.
“The watch has a lot of romance, I guess you could say,” said Mr Brown.
“I don’t know how it ended up there, maybe it was stolen, maybe it was traded.
“It’s only by chance that it’s actually come to light and ended up with me.”