At about 9:40pm, even the great Aurel Bacs was taking long gulps from his iced glass of Coke and reaching out to his colleague, Dr. Nathalie Monbaron for a much-deserved refill.
Having started off at 1pm in the afternoon and tag teaming with Sam Hines and Jonathan Crockett, 356 lots with 70-odd lots passed and some five-ish lots withdrawn, still makes for a hefty number to get through in half a day and still perform in the way that the Phillips Watches is known to.
Truth be told, perhaps a majority of the crowd really came in during the second session, when the famed Laurent Picciotto’s 43 watches were lined up for the hammer. And again, there seemed to be a bit of an exodus, once all the early Richard Milles in Mr. Picciotto’s collection were well and sold.
As was the case with Christie’s yesterday, today’s crowd, too, was incredibly diverse and from all over the world with interest in vintage and contemporary split right down the middle.
No million dollar figures today — not in US dollars anyway — but plenty of impressive performers worth talking about such as the lot 811, the black PVD-coated barrel-cased, stainless Heuer Carrera and Mr. Picciotto’s RM 001 (lot 1031) that had bidders in a frenzy.
The auction finally ended at just about 10:30pm with champagne all around to celebrate the team’s hard work and officially cap off spring auction season 2017.
With that said, on to tonight’s five top performers:
Top 5 Performers
Note: All final prices presented are approximate figures in USD (converted with Google); buyer’s premium included.
Despite the sheer variety of names in the catalogue, the top performers’ list at the auction was dominated by one name: Patek Philippe. Coming in at the top of the ladder was lot 1071, the Pink Jungle depicting a jungle in cloisonné enamel. An intensely beautiful watch, one which I had the pleasure of laying eyes upon while the Phillips team was in Singapore for the preview.
Odd as it may be that the top lot wasn’t some tourbillon whirling watch with multiple complications, my kudos to winning bidder tonight for giving due respect to an excellent example of vintage Patek Phillipe metier d’art. The estimate for the watch was made at USD500,000 – USD1,000,000 and sold for, USD767,000.
Second on the list is a peculiar ref. 2499 that the folks at Phillips have termed the series 2.5. Because the watch bears details from second generation of the 2499, i.e. the round pushers but oddly is missing the tachymeter from said generation. According to the catalogue only three of these anomalies are known to exist and are perfectly in line with Patek’s production numbers. Lot 1069 was estimated to go for USD345,000 – USD500,000 and sold for USD650,000.
The third watch on the top and the third Patek on the list is the ref. 530, a substantially large example for a watch from the 1930s. The unusual size is apparently the cause of Patek having used two different case producers for the 530 in that time: One produced a case with 19mm lug width and the other made the case in 21.5mm lug width. Even more interesting is that of the stainless-steel variety only 10 examples are known to exist is horological literature. Estimated to go for USD500,000 – USD1,000,000, lot 1076 sold for USD634,400.00.
Fourth on the list is the 3448, Patek Phillipe Padellone. This was the first automatic perpetual calendar from the maison and was produced for just two decades with 586 pieces known to have been manufactured. Quite the highly sought after reference, the watch was estimated to go for USD300,000 – USD500,000 and hammered for USD525,200.
The first watch on the list is finally not a Patek, but a Rolex. And specifically, the 6263 Mk1 Paul Newman Daytona. As this is an example of the first generation of the Oyster cased Paul Newmans, the watch is understandably a crowd favourite at any auction and typically garners the right kind of numbers, too. Estimated to go for USD190,000 – USD320,000, the watch went for an impressive USD509,600.
For the complete list of lots and their final sale prices go on to www.phillips.com.
