The watch auctions in New York this month topped out at $52 million, the combined sales of Sotheby’s Important Watches ($14.5 million), Christie’s Important Watches ($11,204,650); and Phillips in Association With Bacs & Russo New York Watch Auction: Nine ($25,952,374). That’s a grand total of $51,704,650 that people spent on pre-owned watches last weekend.
The top lot was a rarely seen Patek Philippe Sky Moon Tourbillon ref. 5002P-001, at the Christie’s auction. It sold for $1,562,500 over its estimate of $1.2 million to $2.1 million. The watch has 12 complications, including a cathedral minute repeater, tourbillon, perpetual calendar, sidereal time and sky chart. Years ago, I held one of these masterpieces in my (gloved) hand during a visit to the Patek Philippe salon in Geneva, and the clarity of the sound is truly outstanding. The case is huge, but it holds pretty much the entire universe of what has ever been achieved in high watchmaking. Few other watches in the world compare.
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The top lot in the Phillips sale was a pink gold Patek Philippe Ref. 1518, selling for $1.8 million. Only 281 Ref. 1518s were ever made, and only a small number in pink gold—and yet, suspiciously, we keep seeing them come up at auction. The top lot in the Sotheby’s sale was also a pink gold Ref. 1518, selling for $1.5 million. This one was a gift in 1952 to Joseph A. Kaplan, a self-made entrepreneur, by his son Harold Kaplan, and had remained in the same family, passed from father to son. It’s nice to see the provenance angle extending beyond celebrity connections to interesting personal narratives of notable but not necessarily famous people. Another example of that is Alan “Hammer” Bloore, an Australian sportsman and sailor as well as a prominent Panerai collector in the watch community who sold the first part of his extensive collection of Panerai and Rolex models for $1.6 million at the Sotheby’s sale. “It’s a much-needed reminder of the greatness of our hobby: watch collecting rests far more in the human element of the owner than the actual watch itself,” remarked Geoff Hess, head of watches, Americas, for Sotheby’s.
The traditional celebrity factor is still a draw, though. A yellow gold Patek Philippe Ref. 3448 perpetual calendar made in 1977 and owned by Andy Warhol sold at Christie’s for $378,000; and a yellow gold 1960s Cartier Baignoire gifted by Charlie Chaplin to his wife Oona Chaplin went for $34,290, more than double its pre-sale high estimate of $16,000.
In my category of personal favorites, was a rare Rolex Daytona “John Player Special” in the Sotheby’s auction, estimated at $400,000 to $600,000. In mint condition, it sold for an astounding $1.5 million. It was a record for the reference. It’s also a beautiful example of a hidden gem. The piece was a surprise discovery when settling a family estate. It was hidden in a small pouch within a bank’s safety deposit box, where it had been forgotten and lay untouched for nearly 50 years.
Aside from the usual high rollers competing for the usual seven-figure grail watches, there was one quirky outlier. Phillips sold a unique yellow gold Casio G-Shock 40th Anniversary Dream Project No. 2 solar-powered watch for a whopping $400,050, a world record for any Casio watch, with 100 percent of proceeds benefiting The Nature Conservancy.
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