Twice in Six Months - Phillips Watches At It Again

A Record, Broken Again

Phillips New York closed The New York Watch Auction: XIV at US$75.8 million, making it the most successful watch auction ever held in the United States. The house had set the previous record at its own New York sale six months earlier; this result surpassed it.

Every lot found a buyer. That makes it another "white glove" sale - the industry term for an auction in which nothing goes unsold - and extends a streak that now runs five and a half years. In that entire time, Phillips New York has not held a single live watch auction with an unsold lot.

Sixteen watches sold for more than US$1 million, and several set world records for their makers. One result, though, stood well above the rest.

The Top Lot

The sale's highest price went to an F.P. Journe Chronomètre à Résonance, numbered 007, which sold for US$13.9 million.

Source: www.phillips.com

It was the most expensive watch result of the entire spring season across the industry, and it set three records in one go: the highest auction price for any F.P. Journe, the highest for any watch by an independent watchmaker, and the highest for any 21st-century watch in a commercial sale.

The Résonance is one of Journe's signature designs, built around two balance wheels that synchronize through their own vibration. This example dates from the very beginning of the brand, which helps explain the result - early, historically important pieces from a maker this respected rarely reach the market.

Independents at the Top

The Journe was not an outlier. Of the ten biggest results of the night, five were F.P. Journe. Add a Voutilainen and a Richard Mille, and seven of the top ten came from independent workshops rather than the established Swiss houses. The remaining Journe lots ranged from roughly US$2 million to US$4.4 million.

Source: www.phillips.com

Source: www.phillips.com

Source: www.phillips.com

Source: www.phillips.com

The records told the same story. Phillips reported new world auction highs for Kari Voutilainen, for the British watchmaker Roger Smith, and for Urban Jürgensen, all makers working at small scale, well outside the volumes of the major brands. That scarcity is a large part of the explanation. A major house produces watches in the thousands each year, an independent like Smith or Journe might complete only a handful. Strong demand against a very limited supply pushes prices to levels once reserved for vintage watches alone.

The Established Names

The traditional houses still performed well. They simply no longer had the top of the table to themselves.

A Patek Philippe reference 5004G in white gold, previously owned by Eric Clapton, sold for US$5.2 million, the second-highest result of the night.

Source: www.phillips.com

 A reference 1518, the first perpetual calendar chronograph Patek produced in series, and a long-standing collector favourite, brought just under US$4 million. Patek set several more records across other lots in the sale.

The only vintage Rolex in the top ten, a Daytona, placed ninth. A few years ago, that ranking, a single Rolex sitting below five watches from a contemporary independent, would have been hard to imagine.

Three Continents

The New York result was also part of a broader milestone. Across the spring season, Phillips sold three separate watches for more than US$10 million each, in three different markets: Geneva, Hong Kong, and New York. According to the house, no auction house had achieved that in a single season before.

Together with the unbroken white-glove streak, it points to a market that is both deep and genuinely global. Demand at the very top is no longer concentrated in one region; serious buyers turned out across three continents within the same few months. It also suggests the pool of people willing to spend eight figures on a single watch has widened, which benefits the major auction houses most of all.

What It Signals

For most of the last century, record-setting watches were almost always vintage, pieces made decades ago by houses whose founders were long gone. That is no longer the rule. The most valuable watch of the entire spring season, anywhere in the world, was made by a watchmaker who is still working today.

The New York Watch Auction: XIV confirmed a shift that has been building for years. Independent makers are no longer a niche corner of the collecting world; at the highest level, they now set the rules. For collectors, it suggests the watches most likely to hold their value are no longer only the obvious vintage references. And for Phillips, two US records in six months and a five-and-a-half-year white-glove streak make the case plainly enough: demand for the best watches, modern and vintage, has rarely been stronger.