One of the great joys of recent years is the way small, regional auction houses can access a global audience online, which means collectors can discover treasures that would never have come to their attention in the past.
An online auction, currently underway and ending on November 30 in Norway, is a perfect example.
Blomqvist, based on a peninsula 30 minutes drive from Oslo, is offering a Patek Philippe pocket watch once owned by one of Norway’s most famous sons, Roald Amundsen, whose team was the first to reach the South Pole in 1911.
He might have beaten our own ill-fated expedition to the Pole by a team led by Captain Scott, but that may add to the story behind the Amunsden watch.
The Patek Philippe timekeeper is described as a deck watch, which used as a navigational chronometer by Mr Amundsen during his Maud expedition to the Arctic’s Northeast Passage between 1918 and 1923.
The watch was kept in the Amundsen family until the 1980s and has been in the possession of a private collector since then.
It had a pre-sale estimate for the online auction of $25,000 to $42,000 and the current bidding is at $26,000; little more than you might spend on Rolex Submariner Kermit on the secondary market.
For that you get a silver-cased Patek Philippe pocketg watch housing a timekeeper with a silver-plated dial.
An inner cover of the watch is engraved with the commendation: ”Awarded Third Prize – Geneva Astronomical Observatory Timing Contest 1919 1920”.
It is sold with a letter from Anne Chr. Amundsen Jacobsen, dated 1997 that confirms the Patek Philippe watch belonged to Roald Amundsen and was used as a sled chronometer on the Maud Expedition 1918-1923.
I see Patek’s power reserves have changed much in a 100 years.