Big Three Auction Houses Sold Over $100 Million USD in Luxury Watches This Past Weekend
Setting world records for various pieces including Rolex, Biver, Patek Philippe and more.
It was a big weekend for luxury watches in Geneva. This past weekend, the three biggest auction houses, Phillips, Sotheby’s and Christie’s brought their auction to Switzerland, selling over $108 million USD in total in luxury watches. Amongst the big winners are Rolex, Patek Philippe and F.P. Journe, who were king of the auction blocks.
Amongst the many watches sold, various pieces hit record-high prices at auction. At Phillips Auction, which was held in association with Bacs & Russo’s Geneva Watch Auction XVII, all lots were sold with final results coming in at $52,488,707 USD. A gem-set Rolex Daytona, Ref. 6270 “The End Game,” sold for a record $4,105,853 USD. The watch was in yellow godl and featured a pavé diamond dial, sapphire indexes and a baguette diamond bezel and was one of two watches that sold for more than $3 million USD. The second and third-highest lots at the auction belonged to two rare Patek Phillippe Ref. 2499 perpetual calendar chronographs watches — one was a second-series ping gold model which sold for $3,261,784 USD while the other is a first-series yellow gold watch for $2,624,859 USD. Another notable first included the first Biver watch produced by father-son duo Pierre Biver and industry icon Jean-Claude Biver which sold for $1,413,129 USD. A mint condition 1958 Rolex Milgauss also sold for a records of $2.5 million USD.
Christie’s hit a sale of over $45 million USD with the combined total of its Rare Watches and Art of F.P. Journe sales hitting $29.7 million USD and $15.3 million USD respectively. A Patek Philippe Ref. 5711-1A-018, best known as the Tiffany Blue Nautilus topped the Rare Watches sale, selling for $2,498,876 USD. Christie’s also sold a rare Daytona chronograph watch set with a diamond bezel made in 1985 for the Sultanate of Oman which sold for $1,274,730 USD.
As for Sotheby’s, its Geneva sale totaled just over $13 million USD with its Important Watches sale generating $10,614,751 USD and the Centuries of Time: A Private Collection of decorative pocket watches finishing at $2,575,919 USD. The top lot in the Important Watches sale saw the Rolex Paul Newman John Player Special set a new world record at $2,491,655 USD.
In case you missed it, Omega expands its Seamaster Aqua Terra Worldtimer collection with three new references.
