When Time Stood Still: Hiroshima watch with hands stuck at time of atomic bombing sells for $31,000.

It’s easy to think of major events that changed the world. Pinpointing the precise minute things changed is a lot harder. A watch that sold recently at RR Auction did just that.

The watch, which sold for $31,113, was part of the auction house’s “Remarkable Rarities” auction, which ended Feb. 22. It’s small and brass-tone with clouded crystal, scorch marks and melted spots. Its band is long gone. Most poignant of all, its hands are frozen at 8:15—the time the United States dropped the atomic bomb known as “Little Boy” on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945.

Small, brass-toned watch hands frozen at 8:15-when
the atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima.
Sold for $31,113 at auction. Image: RR Auction

A British soldier sent there to provide emergency supplies and survey construction requirements recovered the watch from Hiroshima. Its owner was presumably one of the great many people who were killed immediately—burned to death, exposed to lethal radiation, thrown by the blast or crushed under collapsed buildings. Three days later, another atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. On Aug. 15, Japan surrendered, ending the war.

It is impossible to know exactly how many people were killed by the atomic bombs. Estimates say that 70,000 to 140,000 people in Hiroshima died by the end of 1945. Many survivors carried permanent injuries or developed cancer at increased rates.

The detonation of the Hiroshima atomic bomb
as seen from above. Image: Getty Images.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which opened in 1955, has a collection of timepieces stopped at the time of the bombing. Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction, hopes that the watch sold at auction will “not only remind us of the tolls of war” and “underscore the profound, destructive capabilities that humanity must strive to avoid.”

You may also like:

Deadly Discovery Linked to Civil War

Out of the Horrors of War, Emerged Trench Art