Remember the hysteria when Patek Philippe’s first Nautilus with a Tiffany Blue dial sold at a charity auction for $6.5 million?
That actually was not the end of that story because, for reasons that remain a mystery, the winning bidder at that Phillips auction in New York did not complete the purchase, so the watch was sold to the second placed underbidder, who secured it for a total of around $6.2 million (tax and fees included).
Hodinkee has a brilliant interview with Californian collector Zach Lu, explaining how the auction unfolded last year and his delight at securing the watch after he posted a video on his Instagram feed of him unboxing the hottest watch of 2021.
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$6.2 million is a chunk of change for a steel watch with no complications, and demonstrates how hot the market is right now for the rarest and most coveted pieces.
It also shows how the watch business is now behaving more like the contemporary fine art market, where prices are driven to stratospheric levels because unique works of art are pursued by billionaires across the world as symbols of their status and taste or as investments to be cashed or traded at a future date.
While pondering on this elevation of watches into miniature works of art — and all that flows from that — I was also keeping an eye on the Chistie’s auction of Gérald Genta’s original artwork for the Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak steel sports watch.
As the price passed CHF 100,000, I reflected that it was possible the sketch would sell for more than a minor Picasso.
That was a week ago.
I guess that is around one-tenth of the price of the Tiffany-dialed Nautilus, but reinforced my view that haute horology (if the Nautilus or Royal Oak can be considered such) is now taking on the same status as fine art.
Dear Rob,
The art market has always been the final domino to fall in the event of a recession/collapse of world equity prices. Recent auctions in the watch world indicate that watches have assumed parity with works of art, fine wines and classic sports cars. A Magritte recently went for $49 M and a David Hockney for $14 M which were record prices. Historically low interest rates have made my UHNW clients buy assets since 2008 or go into Private Equity. This was exacerbated by COVID-19 and supply issues which intensified the demand for Rolex etc. as a ” to flight to perceived quality”. It will all end in tears.