Collector Discovers His $180,000 Vintage Watch Has Been Running Three Minutes Fast Since 1974

A routine service of a 1974 Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, purchased at auction for $180,000, has revealed that the watch's movement has been consistently gaining approximately three minutes per day since the Ford administration — an error so gradual that its owner, retired attorney Gerald Bancroft, never noticed. 'I've always been early,' Bancroft said, examining the watchmaker's diagnostic report with a look of sudden comprehension. 'Every meeting, every flight, every dinner reservation — I arrive three to seven minutes ahead of schedule. My wife calls it punctuality. My watchmaker calls it a worn mainspring.' The cumulative effect of the gain over 50 years of daily wear amounts to approximately 38 days of additional time that Bancroft has lived ahead of the rest of the world. 'He has essentially time-traveled 38 days into the future,' said horologist Marcel Dumont, who performed the service. 'In a sense, Mr. Bancroft has been living in tomorrow since approximately the fall of Saigon.' Bancroft's response to the diagnosis was unexpected. Rather than authorizing the $3,200 service to correct the rate, he has requested that the movement be left in its current state. 'I've built my entire identity around being early,' Bancroft explained. 'My colleagues respected it. My children feared it. If I suddenly start arriving on time, people will think I've had a stroke.' Dumont has complied with the request, noting in his service records that the watch is 'functioning incorrectly per client preference' — a designation he has used only once before, for a client who insisted his minute repeater chime slightly off-key because it 'matched his doorbell.'