Skip to content

The Spring 2021 Auctions Prove The Watch Market Is Moving Full Steam Ahead

Published on Mon, 24 May 2021 14:20:37 +0000

Records, surges and shocks – this auction season had it all.

Synopsis

This episode of Hodinkee Radio provides a comprehensive review of the spring 2021 auction season, covering major sales from Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips across Hong Kong, Geneva, and New York. Host Stephen Pulvirent is joined by colleagues Jack Forster and Cole Pennington to analyze market trends and notable results during the COVID-19 pandemic era.

The discussion reveals a robust auction market with some surprising developments. While vintage Patek Philippe continues to dominate the ultra-high-end segment—exemplified by a Patek 2523 world timer with cloisonné enamel dial selling for over $7 million—the team identifies emerging trends including surging prices for F.P. Journe watches and Grand Seiko vintage models. A unique platinum Rolex Daytona ref. 16516 with turquoise dial fetched over $3 million, suggesting continued strength in rare modern Rolex pieces even as common vintage Daytonas may have peaked.

The hosts note that traditional blue-chip watches like the Patek 2499 series, rare Submariners, and Nautilus models continue performing strongly, indicating market health. They discuss how the pandemic hasn't dampened collector enthusiasm, with some sectors experiencing unprecedented growth. Cole highlights Grand Seiko's rising profile, while Jack emphasizes the unpredictability of auction results and the growing sophistication of the collector base.

In a follow-up segment recorded immediately after Christie's Hong Kong "Legends of Time" sale, Stephen and John Buse discuss the somewhat surprising result for the Alan Banbery Patek Philippe 3448 "Senza Luna"—a unique perpetual calendar with leap year indicator instead of moon phase. While it achieved a strong $3.74 million, this fell short of expectations and the high estimate, prompting speculation about behind-the-scenes dynamics and whether Patek Philippe itself was bidding to acquire it for their museum.

Transcript

Speaker
Jack Forster If it's something you want and you can afford it, you're you're gonna get it whichever way you can. And if you can't get it through the boutique, you can't get it through regular retail channels, you can only get it at auction, and you don't really care about whether or not you're paying two or three times retail, then you know, you just do what you have to do. I think that it speaks to the sort of degree of disposable income that people are increasingly willing to throw at I think collecting in general, certainly during the pandemic and and watches in particular
Stephen Pulvirent . Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Polveran and this is Hodinki Radio. If we go back to early 2020 when the pandemic kind of changed the state of the world, uh there's one question I get from people in the Hodinky community more than any other, and that's how's the watch market doing through all of this? Now, there's no single answer that covers the whole watch world. Plenty of sectors are struggling, plenty of sectors are doing better than ever, but you know what's definitely not struggling? The auction market. And I wanted to get Cole and Jack on mic with me to cover the sales from Hong Kong, Geneva, and New York this spring to try to get a sense of what the market actually looks like. So we'll talk about everything from the new record setters to the brands that are experiencing surges to where you can still find value if you're trying to do that at a watch auction. But that's not everything. Uh there was one late-breaking sale, uh, it came just this past Saturday morning in the US. Uh, it was actually an evening sale at Christie's Hong Kong. Uh, and this was the Legends of Time sale. It was just 18 lots, all super high-end. And one of them was the legendary Alan Bamberry Patek Philippe 3448 Senzeluna? So just an hour or two after the hammer fell on that sale, uh John and I hopped on the mic to try to parse the results. And I gotta say, it's not that simple. They're not so clear cut so you definitely want to stick around to the end of this episode to hear that conversation too. So with that in mind today is all things auction and without further ado let's do this Hey guys, how's it going? It's going great. Going absolutely great. Going okay, Steven. How's it going with you? It's good, man. It's good. Uh it's been it's been busy at uh our dispersed Hodinky HQ. I guess there is no HQ right now, but uh, you know, we're on in three different cities, three different time zones, and we're talking about watches. I mean lights life's pretty good. Yeah, between the three of us, we've got a substantial uh uh part of the world covered. We do, yeah. We're actually gonna talk also about a substantial part of the world today. You know, it it was auction season. It's winding down. We're we're recording this, you know, in mid-May. And there's really only one sale left for the sort of what we would call like the quote unquote spring auctions, right? Like the April-May auctions. And that one's happening in Hong Kong this weekend. But we've got results from Hong Kong. We've got results from New York. We've got results from Geneva. And I thought it would be fun to bring the two of you guys on and kind of go through what we've learned this auction season, the auction world's been kind of weird since COVID hit, as everything else has been. So I thought we could kind of go through and see what we're what we're learning about the state of the watch market today. All right, let's do it. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Awesome. Well I, mean to, set things up, I mean, like I said, there have been sales in Hong Kong, Geneva, and New York. We're going to focus today mostly on Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips. There are other people doing watch sales. Bottoms is doing sales, Heritage is doing sales, Antiquorum is doing sales. But I think, you know, if we want to look at kind of the macro market trends, I think Suthebe's Christie's and Phillips gives us gives us a nice picture without, you know, to make our lives a little easier, without the three of us having to pour through literally thousands and thousands of auction results, which I don't know about you guys. I I I don't have time for that. Yeah, me neither. I
Cole Pennington and I think there's a good a hole in the market for someone to develop like an auction report, right? Someone just summarize auctions and and report all of the data across the whole industry.
Jack Forster Don't get any ideas, go
Cole Pennington I mean, maybe some sort of website, you know,
Stephen Pulvirent uh that has like a podcast attached to it. Let's hold on that for now, but uh let's start with the top dogs here. Heading into auction season, there's always attention paid to like, oh, what's the big world record gonna be this time? And Danny wrote a really great story, which we'll we'll link to in the show notes about the watch that everyone expected to be the star and turned out to be the star at least financially of this auction season which is a Patek 2523 world timer that's sold at Phillips. This has a Cloison A enamel dial that depicts Europe and Asia. It's the quote unquote Eurasia dial, as opposed to like a North America dial or something like that. And um these watches are incredible. I mean, before we get into the numbers, I mean, Jack, I know you're a big fan of these watches. They are they are something special. Oh, I mean, they're
Jack Forster just unbelievably uh beautiful examples of absolutely classic golden age complicated watchmaking for Paddock Philippe. They have unparalleled artistry. They have unparalleled history. I mean, you know, you look at one of them, you put it on your wrist and you're transported to a completely different era of, you know, personal elegance and style and the prices. Oi vey the prices. I mean uh you know it's like it's I I kind of feel whenever I see a result like this nowadays like an Egyptian peasant seeing the pyramids for the first time at like you know, like 2000 BC. It's just like, well, that has no bearing on my personal life whatsoever or on the destiny of my family for the foreseeable future, but
Stephen Pulvirent sure is big. Yeah. These watches are stratospheric. They basically all sell for a million dollars plus now. They've quietly kind of become like the paddock if you want something spendy. I don't know. Personally, I I love travel watches. Oh my gosh. Yes. Yeah. I I love travel watches in general. I know Cole feels the same way. Jack, I know you feel the same way. These to me, I love that they're they're travel watches and they have that romanticism, but also like from a timekeeping standpoint, you can read them like a time-only watch, you know? Like there's not they're really practical in a funny way. And these close in a enamel dials, which are not, you know, normally my bag, like the the more is more sort of thing is not normally my thing. These are absolutely stunning. Like if you ever, if you're listening to this and you ever have a chance to see one of these uh at an auction preview, just go do it. Like it's worth the the trip to the auction house or the preview alone just to see these things. They, you know, there's something about like 80-year-old handmade, hand-painted enamel that is it it is a legitimate work of art. Ever
Jack Forster y time I see one of these, this is probably a terrible idea, but every time I see one of these, I kind of think how cool would it be you know, the continents drift, how cool would it be to have a like uh you know, a gondwana land world time watch that shows like the arrangement of the continents three hundred million years ago or like one that shows where they're gonna be fifty million years in the future. Well they they do take custom orders, Jack
Stephen Pulvirent . Just saying. Yeah, I think I think Jack needs to call Thierry and uh get himself a Pangea world timer uh made. All right. So heading into auction season, this was the top lot at the major houses. It was estimated to sell for about three point eight million dollars. It seemed like a lot, but also totally reasonable, you know, if you comp it out against what what else has sold previously. It ended up selling for almost double that. It ended up at at a hair over seven million Swiss francs. I think for me, the big takeaway here is old beautiful paddock is still king. Like when it comes to auctions, nothing is going to outperform rare, beautiful, old, complicated watches from Patek Philippe. Does that seem reasonable to you guys? I mean, do you think we've hit peak Daytona? Yeah. I mean, I think overall, I mean I think if you look at the kind of like quote unquote everyday Daytona's, yes. I mean, the next watch we'll talk about in a second is the next highest selling watch. And it is a Daytona. And it's not a Daytona like the ones you're talking about, Jack. It's not like a beautiful old 1960s Daytona. Well, exactly. But yeah, I think these I don't know. At least, at least if we're talking about the stuff that's on the covers of catalogs, the stuff that's gonna get, you know, if you if you go to the results page and do like sort by result high to low, I think if you look at those, uh and not I think, I know if you look at those, you know, the first six, nine, twelve watches that come up. More often than not, they are complicated mid-century Patek Philippe watches. Yeah, no surprises there, right? Yeah. And we kind of
Cole Pennington know that they are actually rare items. So Peak Daytona, you don't really know how many are out there, right? We actually don't know. There's no, you know, production numbers out there. We know for a fact that there are very few of these. So I think in terms of peak Daytona or not, I reckon that these will continue to climb. And that that this shouldn't be a crazy surprising result. Because I think it's actually worth it. And I won't say a lot of these auction results are like, oh, there's a lot of value there. But when it comes to this, there
Stephen Pulvirent really is. Yeah. I mean, with auctions, the interesting thing, and this gets into the the dynamics of auctions, right, is like uh for the value of something to escalate, all you need is two people. And for something this rare and this special, like I kind of believe it it exists a little bit outside of market dynamics. Like, there's not really a market for these. There's like 10 collectors, and at any given time, all you need is like two of them to be interested. So I think you're right, Cole. Like I I don't see this as a thing that 10 years from now we're gonna look back and be like, oh my God, somebody was paying seven million dollars for uh, you know, Eurasia World Timer. I think we're going to look back and next time this watch comes up, it's going to be a $10 million watch. You know, I I would not at all be surprised by that. There's really
Jack Forster no way of answering this question because we don't, you know, we we obviously don't have any access to the data, but it makes me wonder how many clients there actually are for this kind of watch. You know, for a mid-century cloison enamel dial, super, super rare paddock Philippe that's gonna go for between three and seven million, depending on how many egos there are in the room and on the phones, that's like I mean there's an awful lot of I mean not an awful lot, but there's a significant number of high net worth people in the world who are interested in watches and it's a bigger number now than it was ten years ago, 20 years ago, and this watch would have traded for a fraction of what it we just saw it go for. And I think that there actually I think there actu
Stephen Pulvirent ally is a bigger pool. Yeah, you might be right. I mean, I I would love to go dig in. I'd have I'd have to go. I don't know if Phillips has this data publicly available. I mean I know they they like kind of have to release it legally, but I don't know if it's easily accessible, I'll say. But I'd be curious to see how many different bidders bid on this watch at a serious level. Like not not the person who raises their paddle for the first one million dollar bid so that they can like have bid on it. But like I would love to see how many people were seriously competing once this watch got to three million dollars, you know? You could always file a freedom of information. Not outside of America's bord
Jack Forster ers though. Okay, so we take Paul Boutros out for lunch and uh serve him papers. Yeah,
Stephen Pulvirent exactly. Or hey, if you're one of them, hit us up in the comments. Let us know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If you've been on this watch, like seriously let us know. I would I would love to know. All right, Jack, you already alluded, and we're gonna come back and talk about more paddock later. Like, people don't need to worry. We're not done with Patek the Leap for this conversation, but you brought up Peak Daytona and we've seen over the last number of years watches like really unique or interesting or rare manual wind, nineteen sixties and seventies Daytonas, a la Paul Newman and others set crazy prices. We have the Unicorn, we have the Neanderthal, we have they all have nicknames, most of them given by Italian watch dealers. But this watch is weird. This is a really, really weird Daytona. It's weird. From 19. It's so strange. And like, you know, spoiler alert, this is a $3.14 million watch. It sold for uh $24,375,000 Hong Kong dollars, which as of yesterday when I did the math was about 3.14 million. And this sold at Sotheby's in Hong Kong. It's a 16516 Daytona from 1998. It's platinum. It has a platinum bezel, and then it has a turquoise lacquer dial, which is insane. Uh it's basically like a a stella dial kind of watch. They think it's unique. There aren't that many platinum Daytonas like this anyway. And I don't know. To me, like this watch does not scream when you look at a picture of it like highly collectible and desirable. I have to say, Stephen, like I looked at
Jack Forster this result and you know, like I I first of all, I really love this watch. I mean there's something about super, super eccentric Daytona is that just I just find really, really appealing. And generally, generally if I like a Daytona, it and it's an auction listing, it it means it's going to sell without reserve for under the low estimate. So um like and I I I saw this result and I was like
Stephen Pulvirent , you don't understand anything. Yeah. I look at this result and like I get it. It's a possibly unique Rolex and Rolex doesn't do unique pieces. So like from a collecting standpoint, I get it. I'm not surprised. I am surprised that this is like the most expensive Daytona we've seen in a very long time, that is kind of surprising to me. I just want to point out that it sold for 3.14, which is a fantastic number. So that's nice to see. Oh's Cole's breaking out the pie references here. I see what you're doing. So this watch, yeah, I I mean I think it does open up the question of like have we reached peak Daytona, have we reached peak Rolex? And I don't know. From from my analysis, it seems like I do think the prices for the sort of rare stuff are coming down. Like Daytonas that would have been 90,000, 100,000, 150,000 two years ago are now probably more like 50,000, 70,000, and 90,000. But I think if you can find something that says Rolex on the dial that is unique or probably unique or like you can put some kind of like pretty limited quantity on it, I think you're gonna get a crazy result still. I I just don't think I don't think the market has tired or anytime soon is going to tire of rare Rolex uh examples.
Jack Forster Just as a watch to wear, I mean, you know, leaving aside the whole question of rarity and uniqueness, this is a watch that I would absolutely just love to wear on a regular basis. There's there's something so like freak
Stephen Pulvirent ishly engrossing about it. Yeah. It's so strange. It is a deeply strange watch. And I love it even more thinking about the idea of this being like Jack Forester's daily beater, you know? Throw this thing on like a NATO and just walk around with a platinum Daytona, a a unique platinum Daytona with a turquoise dial on a NATO. I would uh co-sign that one, Jack. What
Jack Forster were you doing in nineteen ninety eight, Jack? Oh gosh, nineteen ninety eight. I think I was still practicing uh traditional Chinese medicine. This would actually be the perfect watch for that. Yeah I mean uh you know it would also come with a pre-mansplanning lecture for me on the origins of platinum in the colliding neutron stars. Per
Stephen Pulvirent fect. The the bitter did not anticipate that. Otherwise, I mean, if we're looking at at records, otherwise, it's a pretty quiet season. And I'm not totally surprised by that. I mean, like, given what's going on in the world and the fact that some of these auctions had limited in-person attendance, sourcing property. I know, you know, talking to people at auction houses is way harder when you can't do it in person. People are kind of holding on to what they've got right now. So I'm I'm not surprised by that. I also don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. But there were very few multi-million dollar watches this auction season. Like you can count them on two hands from the major houses and even things selling for over half a million dollars, relatively restrained. But that doesn't mean that we didn't see other areas go a little bananas. And the one that stood out most to me and that I've actually I've I've literally been getting texts from people every day since since the uh Philips sale in particular. FP Jarn. These watches are are currently available, many of them. And like, yes, they're hard to get. They're limited in the same way that like, you know, a jumbo or a Nautilus or whatever or a Daytona is hard to get. These watches are selling for like three, four X retail, and they're watches that you can buy today. I don't know that I fully understand this result. Just to put one more number on this, Phillips alone sold 11 FP Jorn watches, totaling $2 million dollars in sales for 11 FP Jorn watches. That seems to me like a major kind of like hockey stick moment for Jorn in the auction world.
Jack Forster I mean I've always found auction results on FP Jorn watches really, really unpredictable. It seems very difficult to make generalizations about them just because I don't know. I think collectors kind of perceive each watch as sort of having its own personality and depending on the provenance, depending on when it was made, depending on at what point in Francois Paul's career the watch was made, you can have you know sort of drastically different emotional reactions ye
Stephen Pulvirent ah you you got me yeah I mean in particular two kind of areas stood out to me one are the simple watches like you know chronomet souverin or the chronomet blue. I mean a blue sold for ninety-four and a half thousand Swiss francs. That's what, like a twenty-three thousand dollar watch at retail? That's no joke. And like granted, you can't get one at retail if you're not an existing client. So like I get it. If you want one, this is kind of what you have to pay to get it. That stood out to me, that and the CS. And then the resonance results. It's really I know we're all big fans of that watch and the version that came out last year is technically improved. I would argue aesthetically diminished, maybe in my taste. And I think some of the frenzy for the old resonance might be that the new one is now like a very different. And I think some people are are kind of thinking like, uh, I kind of regret not getting one before they changed it. Because those results are now over 150 up to almost 300,000 US for resonance, which is like that's it's a great watch, but like
Jack Forster that is that is serious money. It's a lot of money. Yeah, I don't particularly know what to make of that either, except, you know, again, to sort of say uh people sort of want what they want and they are this kind of goes back to that uh platinum Rolex that we were talking about. You know, you see something, if it's something you want and you can afford it, and you're you're gonna get it whichever way you can. You're gonna you're you know you're gonna you're gonna go through whatever channels you have to and if you can't get it through the boutique you can't get it through regular retail channels, you can only get it at auction, and you don't really care about whether or not you're paying two or three times retail, or if you want an earlier version that's uh, you know, more aesthetically appealing and you're really, really sorry that you didn't get one when you could, you know, however m however many years ago it was out, then you know, you just do what you have to do. I think that it speaks to the sort of degree of disposable income that people are increasingly willing to throw at I think collecting in general, certainly during the pandemic and
Cole Pennington and watches in particular. I'm just glad that uh or or more more so there's a reason why it's a fantasy draft and not a real draft that I picked this watching
Stephen Pulvirent . Yeah, true, true story. I mean Cole, that that actually brings us to an interesting point. So you you wrote up ahead of the auctions about another brand that I don't you know, when I think of auctions, right? Like yes, FP Jorn Turbillons sp specifically, the turbions and even more specifically the subscription turbions, the really early ones that Francois Paul made mainly himself that are numbered. Those are truly, truly historic special watches. Those I get, but I don't typically think of Jorne when I think of the auctions. It's not the first brand that comes to mind. Another one that doesn't come to mind really at all is Grand Seiko. And you wrote about a couple of Grand Seiko's that came up at the different auction houses. And I wonder if you can kind of give us what you were thinking heading into the sales and then how the results either like confirmed or challenged your your ideas. So I
Cole Pennington think a good indicator and and this is true. So I guess to start off with, I will say that covering auctions, the takeaway is you don't know anything. Like anything goes, right? Like it's it nothing is is really predictable and there's always another level and there's something that you haven't considered that affects these results. However, with that being said, when it comes to Grand Seiko, I mean if you paid attention the last year and a half, I would say, kind of on whatever whatever medium you go to for watch stuff. The chatter about Grand Seiko was there. All the little clues were there. You know, all of a sudden, more and more people are into it. All of a sudden, vintage. In fact, I even think you picked one up, didn't you,
Stephen Pulvirent Steven? Recently. I did. I mean, it's not so recent anymore, but yeah, about about 18 months ago, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So that's a little bit be
Cole Pennington yond when, but I I would say the chatter on all these watch platforms about Grand Sago grew a tremendous amount in the past year. Is it a surprise? Yes, it is actually a surprise for sure that it they all went for above their estimates. But here's the other thing: I mean, at some point, people need something new. There is either a substitution effect at work, uh, just Just it's new and exciting. You know, the spotlight moves back and forth over the whole landscape of all watches from every country: France, Switzerland, England, now Japan. So am I surprised? Not really. But like when you see the result in front of you, like, huh,
Stephen Pulvirent interesting. Wow, Grand Seiko. All right. Yeah. The ones that make the most sense to me and that I'm I'm actually glad are finally getting their moment in the sun. I mean, for the most part, I like that they're not overhyped because it means I can still afford them. I mean, I'll be honest, the uh SBGW033 result at Sotheby's where that watch sold for almost $10,000, kind of bummed. Really was hoping to buy one of those. Really was hoping to not pay $9,500 for it. So we'll see. If anybody has one and wants to sell it to me for less, you know where to find me. But uh the VFAs, uh, which I know are are watches I've had many conversations with Jack about over the years, are I think some of the like most unsung watches in the history of watchmaking. These are some of the finest chronometer. If you don't know what they are, a VFA stands for very fine adjusted. These are the watches that basically they're actual observatory chronometer competition movements cased up as wrist watches. They're cased up in these kind of larger grammar of design cases so that they can be sturdier and you know be less affected by shocks. These are some of the finest chronometer wristwatches made in the 20th century. And until recently, like people didn't really know what they were. You could buy them for you know eight grand, ten grand for a really nice one. Phillips sold a pretty nice example of a 61 GSVFA and it got 44,000 Swiss Franks, 44,100 to be exact. And like that actually makes me happy. I'm I'm glad that these watches are now finally like on people's radar and getting attention. They're they're incredible. I mean, they certainly deserve it. Yeah, totally. And I mean, Jack, I don't know what your thoughts are, but like do you think that Grand Seiko and specifically these kinds of watches, like the really idiosyncratic, unique, rare Grand Seiko's, do you think we're gonna see these kind of take off or You know, I actually think they're gonna take off. I think the pool of collectors
Jack Forster is larger every day. I think that it's more discerning every day. I mean, you know, the funny thing is when I first started writing about watches uh, it was it took a long time to acquire any knowledge, to acquire any information. If you wanted to track what was going on at auctions, you had to go in person, you had to collect auction catalogs, you had to talk to people, you had to have telephone conversations. And you know, nowadays it's actually telephone conversations enough but you know nowadays it's possible for people to become acclimated to what's hot and what's not really really really quickly. And you can become I mean I'm not necessarily saying you can become a a general watch expert, you know, in six months. I still I think that there's a learning curve and I think to a certain extent you can't speed it up if you want to become a good sort of generalist watch expert with a solid grasp of what's going on in the markets as well, that's really tough. Usually it's one or the other. But I do think that as that the market is evolving very, very quickly. You know, I mean it's like there's a you know sort of a social engineer with his thumb pressed hard on the fast forward evolution button. And um people are going to they're gonna grab they're gonna sure they're gonna gravitate towards known quantities, but um the known quantities have escalated well out of most people's reach. And because they are known quantities, you know, there's a certain ubiquity to the sort of like classics that hit high numbers at auctions. It's like there's no there's no surprise there. And there's perhaps interest in collecting these things if um well obviously if you can afford them, and if you're interested, but I think that the thrill of discovering something when it's on the rise is one that cannot be duplicated by, you know, like collecting vintage submariners at this point. You know, there really isn't a sense of discovery. There's a sense of getting, you know, possibly something that's gonna increase in value, something that's interesting to collect in its own rights. But like, you know, discovering, collecting vintage grand seco, discovering, collecting VFAs. I mean, it's it's an undiscovered country for a lot of collectors, and I think that um I think that there's a lot of potential uh interest that could really really explode in that category. Yeah.
Cole Pennington Also I mean Grand Seiko has been pouring a ton of money in investing a lot of money into making Grand Saco a thing, raising awareness around the brand. So it's not really a huge surprise that the vintage models are more familiar to people now as well. Yeah, that's true.
Stephen Pulvirent That's true. I mean, if we want to talk usual suspects, let's let's go that direction for a minute, kind of the opposite of the VFA. I think we touched on it earlier, but like the usual suspects are doing just fine. I think a lot a lot of people have asked. I know I've gotten the question, I'm sure both of you have as well over the last year or so is like, oh, what what did COVID do to the watch market? Has it, you know, ruined it? Are the prices terrible? And it's like, every watch dealer I talk to seems to be doing pretty darn well right now. And I think these public results would bear that out. Like it's you know, anecdotes are one thing, this is data. And if you look at at the usual suspects, like Nautilus prices, still crazy, you know, after that paddockld Wor Terim, the next four top results in that sale, four variations on the Patek Philippe 2499. Like there might be no watch that I associate more with kind of like high-end auction results than the 2499. Phillips had one of each series. They sold from anywhere from uh, what was it, uh 2.45 million at the high end. And then the the least quote unquote least desirable, I can't believe I'm saying that about a 2499, but sold for a little bit under uh half a million Swiss francs. So like those are strong results. They're not the most interesting results, but like they tell us that the the market part of this, and same thing with Daytonas and Submariners, um, you know, rare subs, mill subs, uh, explorer dial subs, those kinds of things. They tell us that the market is healthy, that like the outliers are doing interesting things, but the sort of core of the market, the stuff that you know, when Phillips is putting together a sale and knows they have to hit a certain number, this is the stuff that like they know is gonna sell, you know, that stuff's doing well. And that's I think good because that foundation then is what you can build the weird the weird fun stuff on top of. If the core of the market isn't healthy, nobody's gonna go out on a limb and spend, you know, millions of dollars on a strange Cloison A enamel watch. Nobody's gonna venture 50 grand for a grand seco that most collectors have never heard of. You know, but if the 2499s and the mill subs are doing well and the Nautilus is doing well, like, okay, maybe people feel like things are healthy and that that provides a jumping off point. I'll also just quickly say I was heartened to see, you know, some nice Vacharons and some nice langas at the tops of all the catalogs. Basically, everybody had those things. It's nice to see. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but like high-end watchmaking is not just Patek Philippe A P and then some outliers. It's a bigger fraternity than that. And it's nice to see those folks represented. I didn't hate seeing some Hodinki limited editions sell above their retail prices. Our Grand Seiko, Laurent Ferrier, uh, the tag skipper, which continues to be popular. That was nice to see. Just makes me happy. You know, I know many of our colleagues uh poured a lot of time and energy into making those watches. So it makes me happy to see that customers still want them and are excited to go. MBNF. Yep. There was an MBNF as well, which I love that watch. Man, I wish I had gotten that watch. Oof. Brown dial steel MBNF. Oof. But yeah, it's it's interesting. I'm I'm personally coming out of this auction season just so excited for the fall auction season and the idea that like I might get to be in Geneva for it. I mean Jack and I have have covered the auctions together many, many times. Cole, I have not had the pleasure of uh hanging out with you in an auction room, but i absolutely love it and i love the people and i had major FOMO seeing some of my uh friends from the states make the trip over and I am just so damn excited in November to be in Geneva, to be in the room, to hear the chit chat. It's going to be super fun. And I I really honestly can't wait for it. And I hope that things stay trending in the direction they're trending so that, you know, Jack, we can go eat a way too expensive, way too mediocre meal somewhere and then go uh bust our asses in the au
Jack Forster ction room. I mean, listen, there's it's it's it's fine to watch the big game on television, but there's nothing like being in the stadium.
Stephen Pulvirent It's very true. All right, I got I got two things I want to do here. One, we're gonna do a quick look ahead. You know, we're recording this at the end of the week prior to when people will be hearing this. There is one auction left. It's Christie's in Hong Kong, and probably I would guess the biggest watch of the auction season overall, if not the biggest in terms of price, maybe the one that's like the most fascinating, is still to be sold as of us recording this, and that is a Senza Luna 3448 from Patek Philippe. Uh, we will link in the show notes to Kara's incredible story from years ago. I've heard from many people that this story like legitimately changed the market on these watches. The Senza Luna is basically it's a 3448 perpetual calendar, but instead of a moon phase display, it has a leap year indicator, hence Sensa Luna without moon. This is the only one 100% no question known to have come out of Patek Philippe this way. It was a gift from Patek Philippe to Alan Bamberry, who was their head of sales for many years. It was a gift from Henry and Philippe Stern. The watches from the mid-70s, it's beautiful, it's weird. The estimate is in the millions of dollars. I think it's three and a half to five million is the estimate. This is a super weird wild one. And I don't know, do either of you have any thoughts of what we should expect or be looking for or what you're interested in with the sale of this watch? I mean, I think that it's probably I I mean, ob
Jack Forster viously this is gonna go for a lot of money. I think it's gonna go for well overestimate, and beyond that, I think that uh uh it's a guessing game. Do we think Patek Philippe's bidding on
Stephen Pulvirent this watch? I mean something like this uh it's it's seems like a given. You gotta imagine this ends up in the paddock museum, right? Yeah, where we where we can all enjoy it. Exactly. I like I like that. We'll go, we'll go visit it, Jack. We'll go say hi. Maybe maybe they'll be very nice and take it out of the case and let us try it on. They're not, they're definitely not gonna do that.
Jack Forster Maybe not. That's what we should do the next time we go to Geneva. We should we should go to the paddock museum and ask to try stuff on. Should we record it? Like secret recording of
Stephen Pulvirent this? Oh yeah. Yeah. It's video. I love I love this. We'll get Gray on that uh right right away. We're we're gonna talk about a couple other things here, but for those interested in this watch, stick around after this conversation. John Buse and I are going to be watching the auction. It'll be Saturday morning our time. We're going to be watching, and then we're going to hop on and record a little bit of a post-mortem on this watch and one or two other things at the Christie sale. So after Jack Cole and I are done, stay tuned. You're going to hear a little bit more and you'll get the kind of final say on this watch. We'll know what, we'll know what happened. We can't predict the future here today, but uh through the magic of radio, you'll you'll know by the time this airs. The last thing I wanted to ask you guys with to close quickly is looking looking ahead at the auction world and kind of taking out of this season, what did well, what kind of emerged, what's new, what's different? If there is a brand or a type of watch that you think people should be paying attention to over the next six months leading up to the November sales, and kind of keep an eye out for what would you personally be looking at? Maybe we'll we'll start with Cole and then Jack and then I'll I'll bring up the the rear here. Yeah. What what should we look at? I would
Cole Pennington say Enikar is very interesting to look at because for the first time, some are not for the first time. Okay. That's not true, but more are appearing and they appear very infrequently in the circuit. And that's interesting. So just that's one to keep an eye on. And a car. Hmm. Interesting, you know. Then I would say King Seiko. If we're seeing Grand Seiko rise like this, and this is just the beginning, then all right, it's time to look at King Seiko too. And then yeah, vintage tool watches that are kind of interesting, like vintage Brightling. And why I say this is because after doing that week on the wrist uh with the API 765 and seeing how well Brightling has reissued some of their greatest hits, that raises awareness around the vintage version of those examples. And naturally, you know, more awareness, higher prices. So I would look at those three. Enakar, King Seiko, Vintage Brightling. Kee
Jack Forster p an eye on You know, I think those are three really fantastic picks. Enakar to me is really interesting because it's so hard to find them in really, really good condition. But you know, when you see one in good condition, they're incredibly beautiful I passed on it this is many, many years ago, but there was a a barber shop near the office where I used to work that also sold used watches on the side and they had a m absolutely mint Sherpograph in the window for two hundred and fifty bucks. And I have been kicking myself for not buying it for many, many years. Um but they're really, really charming watches. And I agree with you on King Seiko as well. You know, Stephen, I took what you said in kind of a prescriptive way, you know, sort of like what should people, if they weren't such idiots, actually actually be spending money on? And you know, this is not an inexpensive watch at all, so maybe it's a bad example, but um coming up at uh the Phillips Hong Kong, there's this pocket watch. It is lot 2506, the Patek Philippe Gradovsky, Grand Complication. And it's it's a an amazing piece on a number of levels. I mean, a grand complication pocket watch from Paddock is never anything to sneeze at, but it's got a Julian and Gregorian perpetual calendar, and I cannot remember ever seeing that particular complication before. So it's a really interesting slice of history as well. I would like to see a slightly more direct relationship between actual horological merit and the price paid for watches. And I've been wishing that for many years and I should probably stop. Um because that's not I mean, it's just not how collecting works, you know. I mean I was researching something else over the weekend and I found out that a rare vintage quote unquote Pokemon card from the late nineteen nineties just went for half a million at auction. Half a million for a piece of pasteboard. So clearly there's the object and there's the aura that kind of accumulates around the object. But I feel like we're seeing price wise a lot of vintage Pokemon card style results. I just wish people would think a little bit more about what a watch represents in terms of the actual craft went in that went into it and what it represents horologically. And I can keep right on wishing. Yeah. It's true
Cole Pennington . That is one interesting point that I guess I'll just add a little something here is, you know, I I only started even paying attention to auctions once I joined Hodinky. Prior to that, really, no, never. But I've learned to sort of decouple collecting watches and appreciating watches from observing and thinking about auctions. I almost look at it as a exercise in economics rather than appreciating craftsmanship and watches. And yeah. It's that's a hard thing to decouple, but once you do, I think each one becom
Stephen Pulvirent es more enjoyable. All right, I'll I'll give it one recommendation. Honestly, I think you guys did a great job there, but uh one I'm gonna say is vintage brigade, mid-century burgay is super underappreciated in my opinion, whether it's the on pire watches, which I think can go toe-to-toe with any mid-century watch from Patek or Bashron or AP, like if you want beautiful time-only or time and date watches, they're much more classical in terms of their their styling and much more sort of like idiosyncratic. They're stunning and they were made in tiny quantities and they're starting to pop up more frequently. They're great chronographs, both sporty chronographs and dress chronographs. So there were some. If you go through the the recent spat of Christie's Suthebe's and Phillips sales, which we'll have links to the catalogs in the show notes, the the online catalogs, go look. There are some in there, and I think we're going to keep seeing more and more of them. And I know some pretty savvy collectors who are paying attention to them and have been for for a couple of years now. And I think that's a thing we're going to continue to see more of. So vintage brigade, mid-century brigade. All right, guys. Well, I think that does it for us for the looking back part. And now we've just got to all wait and see what's going to happen on Saturday morning with the Bamberry. And uh listeners stick around. Right after this, you're going to hear my conversation with John Buse recapping that sale. So thanks so much for joining me, guys. Really appreciate it. And uh here's to do in November in Geneva, my friends. Your mouth to God's ears. Thanks, Steven. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Hey John, how's it going? Hey, how's it going man? Good, uh talking auctions on a Saturday morning, right? Auctions on a Saturday. Let's do it. Uh for everybody listening, uh, you've just heard my conversation probably with Jack and Cole about uh most of the spring auctions, but uh one was kind of late breaking news. Uh it it happened in Hong Kong uh just like literally a couple hours before John and I are having this conversation. Um so yeah, this is the last auction of spring. It was at Christie's in Hong Kong and it was kind of a an unusual sale. Do you want to just give us a little bit of background on this since I know you you covered it on the site? Yeah, I mean it was
John Buse uh happy to it was it will it was a little bit of an unusual sale. For one thing, it was an evening sale. I think they they build it as like a white glove kind of sale, um, just 18 kind of primo lots, uh um covering you know a range of things, but you know, mainly mid-century paddock and um like you know beautiful kind of enamel work um on I don't know just like orological objects we'll say so I I'd say that the the lots can be divided into those two main categories
Stephen Pulvirent . Yeah I mean we've got like beautiful classic what like everybody would think of as like kind of the the golden age of of Patek Philippe. Uh and then a whole bunch of like strange like eighteenth and and nineteenth century uh enamel pocket watches and clocks and like this weird automaton gun thing with a flower that comes out of the end and a bird that chimes. It's like sprays perfume. Oh, it sprays perfume? I I believe so, right? That's that's a good thing. Oh man, I missed that. That's awesome. Uh I was I was gonna say the way I would describe these kinds of watches, these are these are jack things, right? You know? For sure. Yeah. A hundred percent. Um but yeah the the Patek stuff is is really what I wanted to make sure to talk to you about because there there were a few lots worth noting. Um there was a an incredible grand complication pocket watch. Um there was a trio of world timers which did strong results. I mean a platinum fourteen fifteen at the equivalent of just shy of one point nine million US. Um there was a yellow gold uh fourteen fifteen with an enamel dial that did a little over two million US uh and a really cool 25-23 uh on a bracelet, um like a mesh bracelet that I don't know about you, but I would absolutely love to wear this watch uh that also did a little over two million. So like, you know, next to the Eurasia uh world timer, like, okay, not quite as record setting, but like strong results for beautiful watches. Uh but the watch we really I know all had our eyes on was the Bamberry um 3448 Senza Luna. Um do you do you want to again since you covered it just give us a quick kind of overview of what this watch is before we get into the results
John Buse . Sure. So this is kind of like, you know, so the Senza Luna is a well-known and uh uh uh watch that's not certainly not without controversy. Um Kara wrote um you know kind of like the story on the Senza Luna as a category uh when she um did some you know investigative journalism on the on the topic. And um uh you know but there is one watch of this of the seven known senza lunas, there's one of them that is, you know, kind of like unimpeachable, and it's this this Alan Banberry uh owned example that was gifted. You know, he is the former retail director of Paddock Philippe. He is the person who assisted Philippe Stern in putting together the private collection that we know is like the Paddock Philippe Museum collection. So a very important person from the company. And he was recognized um I believe on his the 10th anniversary of his uh of his employment at the company um by the Stearns with a with the gift of this unique 3448 uh where instead of uh a moon phase uh indicator on the perpetual calendar it has the leap year and uh so this uh is uh 100% correct uh senza luna owned by alan bamberry. So it's got like internal Paddock Philippe um provenance and um you know of something that's incredibly rare, it's it's it stands out, you know, even um even among uh the other the other seven
Stephen Pulvirent . Yeah, and and the other senza lunas, you know, so the the thirty-four forty eight has the moon phase at at six o'clock uh you know inside the date display and this watch has the the leap year indicator instead of the moon phase, the other senza lunas just have the moon phase covered up. There's no there's no additional leap year indicator. So it's not only is the the provenance unimpeachable, but like you said, the watch itself is also uh y unique. Um but thirty 3448s are are a strong watch when it comes to vintage Patek Philippe. I mean they can fetch anywhere from I mean on the low end maybe a hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand dollars US uh if it's an okay example at auction. Um we see them sell for you know many two three times that pretty regularly like they can get up to five, six, seven hundred thousand, um, not, you know, with too much fanfare. Um and the record heading into today, uh, Carr also mentioned in that story, which we will have linked up in the show notes, um, was for a quote unquote standard thirty-four forty eight, not a senza luna. Um but it was double signed by Fretero, uh, the famous retailer. Uh and that sold in two thousand eleven. It pulled just north of two million dollars um and nothing's really come very close to that since um even even a handful of sense luna results um you know kind of before that in the early two thousands um when a bunch of these traded hands. Um it is important to note, uh, the Bamberry watch, this is not the first time it's come up for sale. Uh the watch sold at Sotheby's in 2008. It sold for about 1.84 million. Uh and today it hammered for 29 million fifty thousand Hong Kong dollars, uh, which by my math is three point seven foon US. Um, so we kind of buried the lead here. We're we're a couple minutes into this. Uh three point seven four million result on the Bamberry Senza Luno. What's what's your first take here? Like what's that result mean to you, John
John Buse ? Well, I mean I think uh just in terms of like, you know, numerically it's just about double what it sold for uh last time it sold publicly. Um so it's a a very strong result. And um, you know, I mean uh but I'm not terribly surprised. I mean when you think about the fact that this is a watch that was worn by uh an executive, you know, probably one of the most important executives uh in the last 50 years at Paddock Philippe, whose last name is Don Stern, you know, um inside the walls of the manufacturer for so many years, the fact that it's unique um in the fact that it's uh you know the only senza luna that is you know 100% we just know that it's 100% correct because it has all the boxes have been ticked. Um so super cool watch, strong result. Um and I think it, you know, it's it really uh but it it didn't come close to the high estimate. You know, the high estimate for this uh sale was forty f um sorry, forty million Hong Kong dollars. So this s you know falls quite well well uh short of the high estimate but still sets a record for uh for the reference over
Stephen Pulvirent all yeah I think you bring up a good point which is is that like this is obviously no result to scoff at uh but I'll I'll admit i was a little surprised i i thought this would blow the high estimate away i thought this was going to be a seven eight nine million dollar watch um yeah yeah i agree uh
John Buse i i thought that this watch had a chance to become the most expensive wristwatch to sell in Asia, displacing the um uh the world time from from late 2019. Um, but
Stephen Pulvirent it but it didn't quite get there. Yeah, I I mean you you brought up a lot of good points. I mean it's it's a unique watch. It comes from inside Patek Philippe. It's kind of a part of the history of the company. It's a reference that's like pretty wearable. Like people wear 3448s, 3450s. They look great. They're kind of oversized for modern, you know, they have this bezel that makes them appear a little bigger. Um they're great watches to wear. Um I'm I'm a little surprised. I I almost wonder if uh you know we I've I've mentioned this before, but like I I gotta imagine Patek Philippe was bidding on this. I mean Alan Bamberry helped put the paddock museum together. You gotta imagine that Thierry and Philippe Stern want this watch in the museum. And I almost wonder if there was a sort of like uh uh acknowledgement of that and if people kind of like let them have it for less uh so that it could end up in the museum. Um we'll see we'll see if it ended up there. Uh we don't know yet again the hammer fell like two hours, three hours before we're recording this. Um but uh and with no, you know, with none of us live in the room, it's uh it's a little hard to tell. But uh yeah, it's it's it's a strong result. It's not a result that blows me away and I'm I'm a little shocked that this isn't even the most expensive watch of this auction season. I I kinda like wanna know more. I wanna I wanna go, you know, wait and when the dust settles, talk to a few people and see if maybe there's something that was going on that we nobody knew about ahead of the sale um and even in the hours immediately after uh because it it feels like I don't know if we look at vintage protect Philippe and what's been happening and with prices, you know, pretty consistently their being watches in the three, four, five, seven, eight million dollar range. Uh I'm I'm a little shocked this isn't joining that that Panthe
John Buse on. Yeah, no, you're exactly right. And um in what's interesting that is that in this same um in this same auction, in the same, you know, tight, fairly tight um curation of 18 lots, there's another watch that we already talked about, that Platinum World Time used to be the most expensive watch in the world. You know? Um right. That's true. I had actually forgotten that. You're totally right. Right. Back in the early two thousands, that that was for a time the most expensive wristwatch. So um but it it uh you know it fell and I think it was around six million dollars when it when it held that and so the you know the price it achieved here falls well short of its you know its former price um and now we have the Banberry um as the most expensive
Stephen Pulvirent Yeah, it's it's interesting. I mean, like people will again have just heard uh my discussion with Cole and Jack and kind of our our assessment was that like auction results are strong both at the high end and kind of the more consumer level. You know, looks like the market's healthy, we're setting records, certain brands are creeping up, vintage Rolex, vintage paddock, they're staying strong. Uh these results, this was supposed to be like, you know, 18 kind of like show stopping lots. And I would say like the prices are good, but not great. Like they're they're fine. Um th this is one where like I thought you and I would have uh a kind of like firm answer heading into this recording. I thought we'd be able to tell people like this is the story. Um I'm a little curious. This these results to me feel like maybe there's something else going on that uh you know, come Monday morning we're gonna have to call some folks in Switzerland and some folks in Italy and some folks in Hong Kong and try to kind of puzzle piece this one together. I think you're right. Thanks for taking the time to do this, man. Saturday morning. Um, we'll we'll have to follow this up. I think you and I are gonna have some work to do on Monday morning, but uh let's let's go enjoy our weekend and uh yeah, this is uh another auction season in the books. Yep, thanks, man.