Christie’s Rare Watches sale in Geneva, its first live auction in Switzerland since lock down, performed strongly with a sale total $9,785,522 (£7.8m) from 207 watches.
The lively but socially distanced saleroom saw 57% of the auction sold via telephone bidders, 23% on Christie’s Live online sale platform and 20% in the room.
The highest price paid was for a Patek Philippe Pink Gold 3974R perpetual calendar minute repeater, which went under the hammer for £577,080.
The pink gold version of the 3974R is extremely rare, with a maximum of 15 examples ever made, according to Christie’s.
So far only 4 have returned to the open market, including this one, which was consigned by a private collector who had retro-fitted the watch with a white dial with Roman numerals, making it likely to be unique.
Rolex came in as runner up with an 18ct gold Paul Newman reference 6239, which went for £556,920.
The top ten watches were:
It’s probably a wise idea to mention the date of the auction in the article.