A Patek Philippe 18k yellow gold Patek Philippe Ref. 2523 “South America” world timer sold for CHF 7,961,000. $10,247,000 at today’s (May 9) conversion rate.
It took some time to reach that price as an extended bidding war broke out in a battle between several telephone bidders and one in the room bidder at Phillips in Association with Bass & Russo’s Geneva Watch Auction XXIII. It’s a world record for the reference and only the second Patek Philippe to reach a sale price of more than $10 million at auction.
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In November last year, that particular threshold wasn’t broken it was smashed. A stainless steel Patek Philippe Ref. 1518 was sold by Phillips for $17.6 million. So right now there’s two reference points for a plus $10 million vintage Patek, where previously there was only one. And that can only mean the price of vintage Patek Philippe’s is rising.
The watch
The Ref. 2523 is already one of the most prized references for vintage Patek collectors. But this example is among the rarest. It has two crowns rather than one, the second adjusts the rotating world-time disc – and multicoloured cloisonné enamel dial displaying the cartography of South America at its centre. This is one of only two known examples, hence the rarity, and the price. The watch had appeared at public auction once before, but back in 1988, so there was no real reference to what the auction price could achieve.
The two crown world timer was Patek Philippe’s response, in the late 1940s and 1950s, to a more globally connected post second world war clientele. The cloisonné enamel dials, executed by enamellists working with Patek, were produced in tiny numbers and depicted continents, hemispheres, and stylised maps. Surviving examples are incredibly rare and the South America dial is among the most desirable.
The market signal
Following the sale Phillips described the result as confirming “the continued strength and resilience of the top end of the international watch market despite the current global geopolitical situation.”
This matters of course, not only to the auction market but to the wider watch market as a whole. Since the covid years, when rare Rolex sports models – Submariners and Daytona’s, Audemars Piguet Royal Oaks, Patek Nautilus all saw huge price surges on the secondary market. Since 2022 prices have slowly declined. Today’s auction shows that not only has serious collector money not disappeared, it’s now laser focused on attaining the most prized pieces.
The watch eventually sold to the bidder in the room, following interest globally by phone, but the final battle came down to the bidder in the room and a telephone bidder. This all points to there not being an established ceiling yet for grail watches.
Where this sits in auction history
Today’s $10.2 million places the Ref. 2523 “South America” is second on the all time list for a vintage Patek Philippe wristwatches at auction, behind the steel 1518 that was sold last November. The top price is still held by Paul Newman’s own Rolex “Paul Newman” Daytona reference 6239, which sold at Phillips’s New York Auction in October 2017 for $17,752,500. The highest result ever achieved for any vintage wristwatch at auction. The combination of celebrity and rarity pushing the price even higher.
Phillips has now held the world record for the most successful watch auction in history (Geneva Watch Auction: XIV, 2021, $74.5 million) and exceeded $200 million in annual watch sales for five consecutive years.
What it means
Two vintage Pateks selling at auction for $10 million within six months is no longer an outlier. It’s now an established pattern. That Patek South American took forty years to reappear at auction, who knows when it will appear again. The top tier of collectable watches has not cooled, even if the secondary market has. Rare watches will attract rare prices. The next question is not if, but what will be the next $10 million watch, will it be a Patek, or a Rolex or something else entirely.
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