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AuctionsOct 09, 2018
Watch Worn in ‘Dead Poets Society’ Sells for $32K
The Hamilton was auctioned off as part of a collection of timepieces, art and movie memorabilia that belonged to late comedian and actor Robin Williams.
Robin Williams wore this Hamilton watch in 1989’s “Dead Poets Society.” It sold for $32,500 last week at Sotheby’s, offered as a part of a larger collection of items owned by the late actor and his second wife, producer Marsha Garces Williams.
New York—Oh Hamilton! My Hamilton!
The Hamilton watch Robin Williams wore in “Dead Poets Society” sold for more than $30,000 at Sotheby’s last week as part of a larger sale of items collected by the late actor and his second wife, producer Marsha Garces Williams.
In the 1989 film, Williams played John Keating, an English instructor with inspiring-but-unorthodox teaching methods at a fictional, elite Vermont boarding school in the late ‘50s. The role garnered him an Oscar nomination.
Williams was given the Hamilton watch after filming was complete, with the back engraved, “Robin Williams Dead Poets Society 1988.”
It sold for $32,500, well surpassing its pre-sale estimate of $1,000 to $2,000.
Sotheby’s sold the “Poets” Hamilton as part of “Creating a Stage: The Collection of Marsha and Robin Williams,” a sale of fine art, film and entertainment memorabilia, as well as 45 watches, that belonged to the actor.
Ninety-five percent of the lots in the 306-lot sale found buyers, with the collection garnering a total of
$6.1 million. 
All 45 watches sold. The top-grossing timepiece was a circa 1998 white gold tonneau-shaped Franck Muller tourbillon minute repeater Ref. 6850, which went for $52,500 (pictured above).
The top-grossing lot overall was a piece of fine art, Adolf Wölfi’s work “Der San Salvahor,” which surpassed its pre-sale high estimate of $200,000 to go for $795,000.
Williams took his own life in August 2014. Marsha, a film producer and philanthropist whose credits include “Mrs. Doubtfire,” was married to the actor from 1989 to 2010; the couple has two children.
A portion of proceeds from the auction are being divvied up among a number of charities that the couple supported, including Human Rights Watch and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Proceeds from the sale also will help establish a permanent Robin Williams Scholarship Fund at The Juilliard School in New York.
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