Leading an important watch auction from a private Asian collection, a Patek Philippe estimated at 10,000,000 - 20,000,000 HKD (between £1.1 - £2.2 million) sold for 12,475,000 HKD – around £1.4 million. The sale was held at Sotheby’s Hong Kong on 5 October 2022 and featured 25 timepieces, including a highly-coveted Patek Philippe Nautilus double signed by Tiffany & Co.
The Sky Moon ‘988’, reference 5002, has been recognised as one of the most important watches to be manufactured in modern history, and certainly one of the most complicated wristwatches of the brand. The platinum model is Patek Philippe’s first watch that features a double dial, bearing an impressive twelve complications and a sky-chart into a wristwatch. It includes a tourbillon, minute repeating on cathedral gongs, perpetual calendar, retrograde date, moon phases, orbit display and sidereal time. It was manufactured around 2010, one of two examples manufactured each year – making it a treasured piece for collectors.
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Around 60,000 Patek Philippes are produced each year (a meagre output when compared to other famous brands such as Rolex, which manufactures around 1 million timepieces a year), and getting your hands on them is more complicated than one may think. The simplest designs of Patek take nine months to create, and the most intricate more than two years. Collectors can then queue for up to 10 years before getting the chance to own one, and for the Sky Moon Patek and other special models, they are also required to pass an interview to enter the waiting list.
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The starting price for a Patek Philippe watch is $12,500, but for more complicated designs, collectors are looking to spend at least $150,000, up to $2 million. Given how rare manufacture is, the auction market has proven a useful tool for how to buy a Patek Philippe. This is especially true for young collectors, as evident in Sotheby’s Important Watches April sale, where 67% of bidders were aged forty and under.
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Fierce competition during the bidding process can make the values go high, but for the passionate collector, the price is always worth it. Virtually no Patek Philippe loses value over time – most even gaining value – especially when resold on the secondary market. Nine of the ten most expensive watches sold at auction are from the Patek Philippe brand, with the second spot on the podium reserved for Rolexes.
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The sale of the Sky Moon reconfirms Sotheby’s new business strategy to focus on the luxury market, which today makes up about a quarter of the business. As Charles Stewart, CEO of Sotheby’s, told Bloomberg, “you don’t have the same sourcing and supply constraints in luxury that you do in fine art”. “We might be able to sell 10 Van Goghs in a season, but they don’t exist.” The luxury market, with its handbags, wines and spirits, jewellery and watches, is scalable to an extent that fine art isn’t – and proves a favourite with the new generation of younger buyers.
