In addition to the defrosting of Mariah Carey, lowering temperatures also means it’s watch auction season again. Fall is when institutions named after fellows such as Christie, Phillip, and Sotheby fill catalogs with all manner of precious Pateks, reliable Rollies, and incredible independents. The season’s first big stretch kicked off this past weekend in Geneva, pulling in some jaw-dropping results.
You may recall that in late 2019, Marlon Brando’s Rolex GMT-Master that he wore as former Special Forces Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now hammered for $1.95 million. Brando had removed the watch’s iconic bezel (making it more reflective of Kurtz’s insanity and proclivity for jungle-bound theatrics—and to ameliorate director Francis Ford Coppolla’s concerns that it was out of place) and hand-scratched his name onto the caseback. The provenance and Brando’s modifications make this a very special version of the GMT-Master ref. 1675 from 1972.
This weekend, Brando’s Rolex sold for the shocking price of $5,124,783—more than double its price just four years ago. (The watch hammered for $4,528,500 but eclipsed $5 million after buyer’s fees—and you thought Ticketmaster was bad.) After coming up for auction only a few years ago, experts were skeptical that the watch would be able to beat out the original result. The Brando GMT was part of a single-owner sale from mega-collector Mohammed Zaman, who originally bought the watch back in 2019. The Brando piece constituted one of the star lots from a collection that brought in close to $38 million.
While the new winning phone bidder remains a mystery—and a last-minute, third-party guarantee raised every lot’s estimate significantly—the results speak to a bullish market, and this despite a marked softening relative to the pre-pandemic heyday of, say, five or six years ago. (Technically, the Brando GMT’s revised estimate was 3.75–6.5 million Swiss francs, meaning it just covered said estimate when accounting for fees.)
George Daniels x Roger Smith Millenium
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It’s widely agreed that late Englishman George Daniels was perhaps the most important and influential watchmaker since Abraham-Louis Breguet. (In fact, he became an expert on Breguet’s work, which clearly influenced his own watchmaking.) Inventor of the co-axial escapement, the reclusive horologist lived on the Isle of Man, crafting some of the most sophisticated, handmade watches on earth.
When a young Roger Smith approached Daniels for an apprenticeship, he was initially rebuffed—but Smith persisted, eventually becoming the elder statesman’s pupil. Together, they crafted a series of watches using Omega movements that celebrated the co-axial escapement; uniquely, Daniels allowed these to be double-signed with both his and Smith’s names on the dial.
The final white gold example in this 60-piece limited edition was Smith’s personal timepiece, which he then sold to a collector to help fund his own eponymous watchmaking business in 2008. This past week, it came under the hammer at Sotheby’s Important Watches auction in Geneva, where five minutes of frenzied bidding saw it sell for $3.2 million to an Emirati bidder. Measuring 37mm in 18K white gold with a stunning engine-turned dial in silver, it bears clear influence from Monsieur Breguet—though in place of a hand-wound movement, it features an Omega automatic calibre with co-axial escapement modified by the pair of star watchmakers.
It’s difficult to overstate the importance of this watch. Daniels’s reputation precedes him, as does that of Smith, who is agreed to be one of the most skilled watchmakers currently in business. Though the Millenium series doesn’t contain a handmade movement like Daniels’S Space Traveler’s Watch—which hammered for $4.6 million in 2019—it represents the tail end of Daniels’s journey and the beginning of Smith’s, which had vast implications for the watch industry. Indeed, without these two men, Omega’s entire business would look very different, as would, perhaps, the landscape of high-end independent watchmaking.
Cartier London “Dice”
And now, to quote Monty Python, for something completely different: Feast your eyes on a watch with little horological staying power and virtually no water resistance, but that will invariably bring a smile to your face: the “Dice” from Cartier London. You may recall that Cartier production was historically divided between Paris, London, and New York retailers, with each division of the business developing (and becoming well-known for) its own unique designs. The Dice, so called (obviously) for its square shape and indices that make it resemble a die, is emblematic of disco-era Cartier London, and prices are reflective of its rarity. (Only four or five pieces have ever surfaced.) This particular example hammered for 138,600 Swiss francs at Christie’s.
And you know what? We backtrack somewhat from our comment about “little horological staying power”—while most London watches featured hand-wound movements, this one actually boasts a tiny automatic calibre from Jaeger-LeCoultre. Housed within an 18K gold case with T-bar lugs, a cabochon-set crown, and featuring a silvered dial with blued-steel sword hands and brown dot numerals. The overall effect is playful, elegant, and a ton of fun. If Cartier were to revive this design as part of its Privée collection, there’s little doubt that we’d see MoonSwatch-level madness in big cities around the world as grown men camp out in front of the maison on beach chairs in a frenzied effort to snag one.
But back to reality. This very same watch hammered for just 7,500 Swiss francs in 2014—a roughly 18-fold valuation increase. And while this isn’t to say that the precious-metal dress watch market is 18 times hotter than it was 10 years ago, it does speak to the explosion in popularity of vintage Cartier, and of smaller watches, which are increasingly being worn by both women and men all around the world.
Source : GQ
