Sean Connery wears an unidentified watch

In The Untouchables, Sean Connery plays Jim Malone as the last honest cop in a bought city, an aging Chicago patrolman who keeps his watch in the pocket of his cardigan rather than on his wrist. He takes the young Treasury agent Eliot Ness under his wing, teaches him how Chicago really works, and is gunned down in his own apartment for it. The part won Connery the only Academy Award of his career, for Best Supporting Actor.

The watch is unidentified, and not because nobody tried. When Propstore auctioned it in London in November 2021, the catalogue could only describe Malone's as an unknown make with a sealed back panel. It sold in a single lot with the watches worn by Ness (Kevin Costner) and Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith), the three lawmen's watches together, estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 pounds. Ness and Wallace wore theirs on screen. Malone's stayed in the pocket.

Propstore could certify the watch as Connery's, used on the production, and still not say who made it. It reached the auction with adhesive and Velcro residue from years on display at a Planet Hollywood, scuffed and a little discolored, the honest cop's pocket watch turned into wall memorabilia.