Editor’s Note
This article captures the electric atmosphere at a landmark Geneva auction, where a rare stainless steel Patek Philippe watch became the center of a fiercely competitive bidding war. The moment underscores the extraordinary value and passion driving the highest echelons of the collector’s market.
Bidders in the room at Phillips’s “Watches: Decade One” auction in Geneva today watched with high anticipation as auctioneer Aurel Bacs approached Lot 23—a Patek Philippe ref. 1518, one of just four known examples in stainless steel. The house had billed it as the “key lot of the year.” The tension was so palpable that one bidder wouldn’t even let Bacs finish his introduction of the timepiece from the podium.
Ultimately, the watch missed its mark. It sold for CHF 14.19 million (approximately $17.6 million), making history as the highest price ever achieved for any Patek Philippe wristwatch at a for-profit auction (which excludes the Grandmaster Chime Ref. 6300A-010, which sold for charity for $31.19 million in 2021). It surpassed the previous record set at Phillips in 2016 for the same reference in steel, which sold for over CHF 11 million ($11.4 million).
There had been some speculation ahead of the sale that the watch had been doctored. Just a day before the auction, internet sleuth Perezcope published an Instagram post suggesting the hard enamel had been recessed, while pointing out discrepancies in the numerals and so on. Nevertheless, the market has spoken, showing that collectors had faith in Phillips and its steel reference 1518. After all, it wouldn’t be a Phillips watch sale without a little hype, a little drama, an antagonist, and a room full of heavyweight disposable income.
