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In the vintage watch world, condition, rarity, and provenance are the trifecta of value. But one factor above all gets collectors truly jazzed.
“The notion of provenance is something a collector loves and cherishes,” Geoff Hess, global head of watches at Sotheby’s in New York, tells Robb Report. “For the most part that’s absent from modern watches. There’s a much lesser story and virtually no provenance when you walk into a Madison Avenue boutique and buy a new watch. Vintage watches tell stories that modern watches often don’t, and collectors, as you know, love to tell stories about their watches and the lives they lived.”
On Nov. 9 in Geneva, the house is offering a timepiece—one of several important historic models it’s putting on the block this fall—that blows most provenance stories out of the, well, water. The piece, a Rolex Oyster, once belonged to Mercedes Gleitze, the first British woman to swim across the English Channel. (“It’s called the Oyster because its case is as tight as a clam,” ads would later say.) During her legendary 1927 crossing, she wore the piece on a ribbon around her neck.
Estimated to fetch in excess of $1.3 million, the gold watch—a highlight of Sotheby’s Important Watches Live Sale due to take place on November 9 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Geneva— was the world’s first practical waterproof wristwatch and as such, is regarded by many watch experts as the timepiece that gave birth to the modern sports watch, not to mention sports product marketing in general.
But Gleitze’s Oyster isn’t the only monumental timepiece Sotheby’s is auctioning this season. On December 8 in New York, during its flagship Important and Fine Watches auctions—the first watch sale at the auctioneer’s new home in the historic Breuer Building—Sotheby’s is offering the Olmsted Complications Collection, a landmark grouping of more than 80 timepieces curated by Robert M. Olmsted, a New York City-based financial advisor and Princeton grad whose alumni obituary highlighted his passion for timepieces. (“He also was fascinated by the mechanical intricacies of clocks and collected pocket watches and clocks all his life. Monday evenings were busy as he wound every timepiece in the apartment. Daylight saving time was a special challenge.”)
The undisputed highlights of Olmsted’s collection are two previously unknown and potentially unique Patek Philippe pocket watches. Each is equipped with a double movement, not publicly known to have existed in any watch, according to Sotheby’s. Boasting two sets of hour and minute hands and seconds hands, the watches differ with respect to their complications: One features a minute repeater, while the other combines a minute repeater with a split-seconds chronograph.
Beyond the collection’s overall rarity, “what’s important is that it’s totally fresh to market and in really superb condition,” Daryn Schnipper, Sotheby’s chairman emeritus of the international watch division, says.
In addition to Gleitze’s provenance-busting Rolex Oyster and Olmsted’s assemblage of top-grade timepieces, Sotheby’s has at least one more ace up its sleeve: On Dec. 5 in Abu Dhabi, the house is offering a lot that represents the essence of rarity: a complete four-piece set of Patek Philippe Star Caliber 2000 pocket watches, for an estimate in excess of $10 million.
The sale features the first complete Star Caliber 2000 set ever to appear publicly. One of five sets the Geneva watchmaker produced, four in mixed metals and one all in platinum with different engravings, this set includes a quartet of watches in each of the precious metals: white gold, yellow gold, rose gold, and platinum.
Introduced in 2000 to mark the new millennium, the double-sided pocket watch contains 1,118 parts and features 21 complications, of which six are patented inventions, including the time of sunrise and sunset, rapid calendar correction, sky and moon charts, and a mechanism that strikes two identical tones in immediate succession allowing it to play a faithful rendition of the Westminster Chimes, something no other watch has ever been able to do.
“Interestingly, the focus was not on more complications but rather advancements in musical beauty and astronomical poetry,” John Reardon, founder of Collectability, a sales and education platform specializing in vintage Patek Philippe timepieces, says. “It literally focused on Patek’s ability to master the art of making sound and showing the stars in a way that was never heard or seen before. It’s all about monumental mechanical supremacy and no other maker could dare to compare at the time.”
It is, in other words, a timepiece worthy of the horological elite. “The Star Caliber is one of the most important watches in the world,” Sam Hines, global chairman of watches at Sotheby’s, says. “It was inspired by Patek’s most important watches in the world: the Henry Graves Supercomplication, the Packard Supercomplication, the Calibre 89. It’s a milestone in the history of watchmaking.”
