Just among Rolexes, five have now sold at auction for over $1 million, all at Christie's:

1. On May 16, 2011, Christie’s sold a Rolex 4113 chronograph for 1,035,000 CHF (or $1,163,746 at the time) in Geneva, which was the first Rolex to break $1 million at auction. (HODINKEE article here.)

2. On May 13, 2013, Christie’s sold a Rolex 4113 chronograph for 1,107,750 CHF (or $1,161,436 at the time) in Geneva. (HODINKEE article here.)

3. On November 10, 2013, Christie’s sold a Rolex Daytona RCO (a.k.a. “Oyster Sotto”) for 989,000 CHF (or $1,089,186 at the time) in Geneva. (HODINKEE article here.)

4. On December 17, 2013, Christie’s sold a steel Rolex triple calendar reference 8171 “Padellone” with diamond-set numerals for $1,145,000 in New York. (HODINKEE article here.)

5. On May 12, 2014, Christie’s sold a Rolex cloisonné dial watch for 1,097,000 CHF (or $1,242,040 at the time) in Geneva. (HODINKEE articles here and here.)

We are aware of other Rolexes privately changing hands for over $1 million, as well. If you think of the 8 known 4113s oversized chronographs, the dozen or so Daytona RCOs, the number of fine cloisonné Rolexes, the 3 prototype Yacht-Master chronographs (one in Rolex’s hands, another in John Goldberger's), Albino Daytonas, and the like, there are well over 25 Rolex watches known in the market that would bring over $1 million at auction today.

If the watch had hammered at $475,000, the premium (25% on the first $250,000 and 20% after that) would have brought the final price to $582,500. Given other rare Rolex watches out there and making a list in my head, I personally doubt that Eisenhower’s Rolex is even among the top 50 most valuable Rolexes known today.

In the world of watch auctions, it is in many cases better to have lower estimates in order to generate excitement. RR Auction was saying the watch would go so high that I think it may have even driven away bidders, and ultimately, RR Auction gets $0 of commission for the watch.

I figured that given these issues the watch would not break $500,000 in bidding, and it didn’t, topping out at $475,000, which did not meet the reserve.

Any bidders on this were buying it for the provenance. And even if the watch was in perfect original condition, I would say that it wouldn’t be as desirable as two other Rolexes that we don’t know exactly where they are: a Paul Newman chronograph reference 6239 owned by Paul Newman and the Rolex Submariner used by Sean Connery as James Bond in Dr. No. I think that if those two watches were in perfect condition, they could possibly break $1 million, and I think they would really have to be in perfect original condition to reach that figure. I think it is fair to say that President Eisenhower was more important to history than Mr. Newman or 007, but that doesn’t necessarily matter to collectors.