Renowned watch expert Paul Maudsley joined Phillips as international specialist director of the auction house’s new London watches department just over 12 months ago.
With him, Paul brought 16 years of industry experience, including personally handling the sales of 20,000 watches across three continents and achieving numerous record auction prices.
Paul says his greatest business achievements over this period are being involved in the sourcing, researching and selling of some “truly amazing and rare wristwatches” and working with the highly knowledgeable international team of specialists and staff.
“Over my 16 years working with the watch auction industry, I’ve achieved many outstanding results from discovering unrecorded watches to overseeing notable records, but no moment can so far be bettered than when I was telephone bidding for my private client on the unique steel Patek Philippe Ref:5016 minute repeater at the Only Watch auction in Geneva last November.
Nine minutes of exhilarating bidding, and then winning it for 7.3 million Swiss Francs – a world record for any wristwatch sold – and with the money all going to a worthy cause. It will be tough to beat that.”
Paul has been part of the watch resurrection of Phillips under the direction of Aurel Bacs. In the ever-changing world of horology, Maudsley always looks for quality, rarity and condition, stating these are rules that will never change.
Over the next few years, his key objective is to strive to source the finest and rarest fresh-to-the-market collector’s watches.
