Show Notes
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I. Pink Gold 2499 There was a pink-gold Patek Philippe 2499 behind me, at about my 7 o’clock. On the Friday morning of the Geneva auction weekend, I was drinking a 12-franc cappuccino in the Mandarin Oriental’s restaurant with a friend. Pink Gold 2499 was at the table behind us, enjoying the CHF 42 continental breakfast with his family after landing in Geneva an hour earlier. This wasn’t just any 2499, but a First Series, perhaps the one that sold for CHF 3.1m just last year, and the only known with the larger Wenger case. It turned out my friend knows Pink Gold 2499, so we were introduced as I left the Mandarin and my half-drunk cappuccino, pretending not to care about the wasted 6 francs. Pink Gold 2499 was friendly and casual, especially for a Pink Gold 2499. We exchanged WhatsApp and Instagram handles. I traveled to Geneva on my own dime thanks to the support of paid subscribers. To get (1) a 10% discount to the Unpolished Store and (2) a $50 discount on a service from Watchcheck, upgrade for $9/mo or $99/year:
The next afternoon at Phillips’ 10th anniversary sale, Pink Gold 2499 was again at roughly 7 o’clock behind me. We both sat there for 90 minutes, this time surrounded by 500 people, half standing around the perimeter of the ballroom of the Hotel President Wilson, all waiting for Lot 23: Patek Philippe Ref. 1518, “A genre-defining, historically important, highly collectable stainless steel perpetual calendar chronograph wristwatch with moonphase display, one of four known. (Estimate: In excess of CHF 8m).” As Lot 23 came up and Aurel Bacs began his pitch for the Steel 1518, Pink Gold 2499 interrupted to shout: “8 MILLION!” “A bid from a savvy Chinese collector,” Bacs said from the rostrum. The interruption was the perfect hook for a short-form video, though perhaps not the way an auction house would’ve preferred to slowly build momentum for the biggest watch of the weekend and one of the most important in the world. After that, bidding was as slow as the air is thin above 8 million francs, though at least five bidders got involved after Pink Gold 2499’s bid. A playful moment came at CHF 10m when dealer Davide Parmegiani placed a bid. “You don’t have a premium paddle, but you have a premium name,” Bacs said as he took the bid from his friendly rival and the chairman of Monaco Legend. Bacs was auctioning off the first steel 1518, while Parmegiani had just completed a private sale of the third steel 1518 (rumor is the buyer’s a low-key European collector). The second example is documented in collector Sandro Fratini’s My Time (and has the most raw dial), while the fourth and final known is slightly different from the first three because it features a larger case made by Wenger. The first three have cases by Genevor. After nearly 10 long minutes of bidding but mostly waiting, this Steel 1518 hammered for CHF 12m, an all-in price of CHF 14.19m ($17.6m, just shy of Paul Newman’s Paul Newman in 2017), going to a winning bidder on the phone. II. Timex
At auction previews, you’re typically helped by a viewing assistant. A young 20-something with dreams of working in “luxury” hands you a pencil and paper where you write down a few lots at a time, which they then dutifully bring over on a tray. I chatted with my assistant at Christie’s, a recent university graduate from a hospitality program in nearby Lausanne, Switzerland. He was 23 and wearing a Timex as he carried over a pink-gold Rolex “Jean Claude Killy” (sold: CHF 520,700) and a black dial Patek 570 (sold: CHF 419,100) on a black velvet tray. The assistants don’t know or care if you’re a superdealer or a lookie-loo like me—mine even offered to hold my light as I took a few photos of my favorite watches. But back at the Phillips preview, the Steel 1518 was different. It had to be signed out and supervised by one of Phillips’ higher-ranking specialists. I’m told it’s in the s
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