Christie’s Watches Online: Top of the Time auction ended March 20 featured the sale of one of the most complicated watches on earth: Patek Philippe Sky Moon Tourbillon Ref. 6002G-001. The watch fetched a price of HKD 45,450,000 or around PHP315,000,000 (+/-USD 5.79M). The complications of the 6002G include an acoustically superb minute repeater with two ‘cathedral’ gongs, and a tourbillon. The front dial indicates the hours and minutes of standard time (mean solar time) and displays the perpetual calendar with a retrograde date, months at 3 o’clock, days of the week at 9 o’clock, leap-year indication at 12 o’clock and moon phases at 6 o’clock. The second dial displays the astronomical functions with star chart of the northern sky, hands indicating sidereal time, extremely precise moon phases showing the rising and setting orbit of the moon. The case features two crowns, the lower crown for winding and the setting of the hour and minute hands, the upper crown for setting the sidereal hands, starscape and moon’s orbit.
Another Patek Philippe Grande Complication (Ref. 5208P-001) was sold for HKD 7,812,000 or around PHP 54,000,000 (+/- USD 1M). The 5208P brings together some of the all-time great horological complications; a minute repeater; a monopusher chronograph, and an instantaneous perpetual calendar displayed in apertures along an arc ; a moon phase and day and night indication. This highly sophisticated combination of functions comprises 719 parts, hand-finished throughout in accordance with the great Genevan tradition. Most importantly, reference 5208P is one of very few ultra-complicated watches fitted with a self-winding mechanism.
Other than the Pateks, a Gerald Genta was sold at a price which is much higher than the estimates. The Gerald Genta Platinum Skeletonized Minute Repeater Perpetual Calendar watch was sold for HKD 819,000 or over PHP 5,600,000 (+/- USD 100,000). As mentioned, the skeletonized watch features a minute repeater and a perpetual calendar.
For Rolex watches, there is an indication of the stabilization of prices after the big dip at the end of 2022. Two Submariners Ref. 16610LV (“Kermit”) sold for HKD 163,800 or PHP 1,135,000 (+/-USD 20,800) and HKD 189,000 or PHP 1,300,000 (+/-USD 24,000). Daytonas were also sold at healthy prices such as a Ref. 116509 at HKD 302,400 or around PHP 2,100,000 (+/- USD 38,500).
To read more about the auction, you may visit the following link: https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/watches-online-top-time/lots/3229?page=2&sortby=LotNumber
Images and material from Christie’s.
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