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Events • 11 Jun 2017
A roundup of the recent Hong Kong watch auctions
The first auction season of the year took place in Hong Kong just after the last weekend of May, with both Christie’s and Phillips selling over US$25m of watches between them, all fees included. The offers were typical of Hong Kong: broad and encompassing everything from high-end vintage sport watches to avant-garde modern complications. While there were few outperformers – the market for luxury goods in Hong Kong is soft – some results were notable. Here are five of them.
Rolex “Paul Newman Panda”
Notably, both Christie’s and Phillips offered examples of the same rare Rolex, the Daytona ref. 6263 “Paul Newman Panda”, a rare variant of an in-demand watch. While there were minor differences between the dials – the specimen at Christie’s was a “Mark 2” while Phillips had a “Mark 1.5” – both watches were almost equivalent in terms of condition and desirability. So it is no surprise that they sold for almost the same: HK$4.02m at Christie’s and HK$3.92m at Phillips, establishing a strong benchmark for the watch.
Cartier magnetic floating turtle clock
One of the major outperformers of the season was an unusual Cartier clock at Phillips that carried an estimate of HK$600,000 to HK$1.0m, but finished at HK$3.8m, signifying the demand for Cartier objet d’art. Though not unique to Cartier, the magnetic clock is often associated with the jeweller. A bowl with hours marked out on its edge is filled with water, with a turtle floating on its surface that is pulled along by magnets, with the head of the turtle telling the time. This particular clock is the largest of its type produced by Cartier, and was also sold by Cartier itself as refurbished vintage in 2008, giving it strong provenance.
Laurent Picciotto’s collection
Laurent Picciotto, founder of well-known Parisian watch store Chronopassion, put his entire watch collection on the block at Phillips. Comprised mainly of timepieces made by independent watchmakers along with unusual extras like bags, toys, and even a guitar, the collection sold remarkably well, given that many of the watches are still currently available on the market, like the MB&F LM1 for instance. The results proved that a well-curated and shrewdly marketed sale still delivers strongly.
Breguet vintage chronograph
Unusually elegant, and fitted with a “sector” dial that is popular today, the vintage Breguet chronograph at Phillips was appealing but still a small watch by modern standards. And Breguet is not typically a brand associated with such chronographs. So the watch was not expected to perform far beyond its estimate of HK$240,000 to HK$400,000. Instead it finished at HK$725,000, one of the highest prices ever paid for a Breguet of this type. This slightly inexplicable result illustrates another quality of auctions: a gamble that sometimes can pay off in a big way for a seller.
Concord C1 Quantum Gravity
Introduced almost 10 years ago, the Concord C1 Quantum Gravity was the first ever wristwatch with a liquid display – a small vial of green liquid as the power reserve display. Originally priced at about US$400,000, one of the ten made sold at Christie’s for HK$300,000, or just over US$38,000. The explanations for that performance are the extreme nature of the complication, which was too far out even when it was new, and the fact that Concord itself has been on hiatus for several years now.