wellthengameover:

This is a £3,000 watch according to Sherlockology. John’s had it since the beginning of ASiP. Where did it come from?

SHERLOCK: The man sitting next to me wouldn’t treat his one luxury item like this [phone], so it’s had a previous owner. 

But apparently the phone is not John’s “one luxury item.” Martin did an interview once where he said when they did John’s wardrobe, they were careful to dress John in clothes that are appropriate to his budget - and this watch is so not. When you look through the rest of John’s clothes, they’re relatively expensive, but not in that area. (I checked to see if this was Martin’s watch, and it’s not.)

There’s some thought that John was a regular doctor before he joined the army, so it’s possible he bought it then, but it doesn’t really seem like something John would buy for himself. That means it was likely a present. A gift this large seems really unlikely to be from either Harry or his parents and it doesn’t look old enough to be an heirloom, so I can only think that it was from Sholto. In fact, it’s Sholto’s left side that was injured, so it’s possible he either can’t or chooses not to wear a watch. My guess is this was Sholto’s watch that he gave to John because he can’t/doesn’t wear one anymore, not a watch Sholto bought specifically for John. Currently at least, Sholto employs five people, so it makes sense that he could afford it. And it tells us that Sholto probably left John, not the other way around:

SHERLOCK: … If she’d left him, he would have kept it. People do – sentiment. But no, he wanted rid of it. He left her.

Sherlock’s saying that Harry would’ve kept the phone if Clara left her; John kept the watch, so Sholto left him, which we already knew.

Because apparently the BBC decided to drop £3,000 on this watch, it’s possible that it’ll be important: that Harry will use to to reintroduce Sholto to clarify Jolto.

(1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 / 31 / 32 / 33 / 34 / 35 / 36)