On Christie’s “Top of the Time” online auction from the auction house’s Hong Kong branch, a Patek Philippe ‘Sky Moon Tourbillon’ sold for $5.8 million (HK$45.4 million) to an anonymous buyer.
Patek Philippe’s timepiece set a new record for an online auction and opened a new avenue for the second-hand watch industry to gain traction.
Part of Patek’s Grand Complications series, the rare watch features 12 complications, such as cathedral minute repeat, tourbillon, perpetual calendar, retrograde date, moon phases, leap year indicator, sidereal time, celestial map, and phases and orbit of the moon. The dial features a handmade blue cloisonne And champlevé enamel dial and housed in an 18-karat white gold case that has been crafted by artisans for over 100 hours. The watch was originally sold to a buyer in 2015 at the Patek Philippe Salon in Geneva.
For a watch market that’s been faltering lately, this Patek’s record-breaking sales were welcome news.
“This is a super rare and complicated watch, but this sale shows that there is a real demand for expensive, high-end, investment-grade watches,” said Paul Altieri, founder and CEO of pre-owned watch dealer Bob’s Watches. “The ‘Sky’ is the limit to what serious collectors will pay for these special, very rare timepieces. This watch checks almost every box, but other than that, some might see high-end watches as a safe place to park money given all the recent banking unrest.”
Recently, values in the pre-owned watch market have fallen from all-time highs in early 2022, coming back down to earth after a pandemic and crypto-related boom. That said, according to BCG, the pre-owned watch market is expected to continue to grow, reaching a CAGR of 10% (composite annual growth rate) through 2026.
“There continues to be an extremely vibrant market for watches around the world, evidenced by the enthusiastic global bidding in this sale, further confirming Hong Kong’s status as the international epicenter for watch collecting,” said Alexandre Bigler, Christie’s Asia Pacific VP and head of watches, in a statement.
Overall, the Christie’s “Top of the Time” auction raised $8.4 million in sales, with participating bids from 48 countries with millennials making up 40% of the auction’s buyers, Christie’s said. The online auction included watches from Rolex, Audemars Piguet, A. Lange & Sohn and Breguet.
“This sale forms a very strong foundation for our spring auctions in May at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center where we look forward to showcasing more exceptional timepieces to our valued customers and watch enthusiasts,” said Bigler.
Finally, the luxury watch industry is expected to get a boost next week with the major watch houses previewing their upcoming models at the Watches and Wonders trade show in Geneva. Industry king Rolex is already teasing some features of models it will be exhibiting.
“It is always an exciting time of year leading up to the launch of new models from top brands such as Rolex, Patek, AP and more. It is even more important for us in the pre-owned market as we are eager to see which models will be discontinued – prices almost always go up about 10% on these models,” says Paul Altieri of the period immediately surrounding the Watches and Wonders event.
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Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him Twitter and further Instagram.
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