Luxury Swiss watch brand Breguet has acquired two of its antique pocket watches at auction, in a spending spree totalling CHF 7m, a record price for the brand at auction.
The watches were snapped up for the Breguet Museum on behalf of its president, Marc A. Hayek, at the Christie’s timepiece auction in Geneva on May 14.
The two pocket watches are said to be the most expensive ever purchased in Breguet’s history, and the costliest Breguet antique watches ever sold at auction to date.
The brand dubbed them “masterpieces” in its watchmaking history and they will now be exhibited in the Breguet Museum.
The first watch, no. 2667 dating from 1814, sold for more than CHF4 million (£4.6m). It is a slim pocket 18ct gold watch with two movements is based on the movement of chronometers. It is an extremely rare piece, designed by A.-L. Breguet designed to confirm his theory that two oscillating bodies in close proximity will influence each other.
The second watch, piece no. 4111, is a thin flat equation-of-time and repeater watch, also based on the chronometer principle. It repeats hours, half-hours, quarter-hours, and half-quarters and dates from 1827. It was sold for more than CHF2.5 million (£1.6m) and has an annual calendar as well as a manual perpetual calendar, and also displays mean and apparent solar time.
