The modern watch auction market is a recent invention. Until the late 1980s, the major auction houses sold watches as an afterthought to their jewellery sales. Then Antiquorum, founded in Geneva in 1974, began to specialise — and slowly, then suddenly, the trade discovered that great vintage watches were genuinely rare, genuinely beautiful, and genuinely undervalued. The Antiquorum sale of "The Art of Patek Philippe" in 1989 set the template. Phillips, under Aurel Bacs from 2014, perfected it. By the 2020s, watch auctions had become the cultural events that fine art auctions were in the 1990s.
The top fifteen
| # | Watch | House · Year | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime Ref. 6300A-010 Stainless steel, one-off, Only Watch charity auction |
Christie's Geneva · 2019 | $31.19M |
| 02 | Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication Pocket watch, 24 complications, made 1933 for Henry Graves Jr. |
Sotheby's Geneva · 2014 | $23.98M |
| 03 | Rolex Daytona "Paul Newman", Ref. 6239 Newman's personal watch, gifted by his wife Joanne Woodward |
Phillips New York · 2017 | $17.75M |
| 04 | Patek Philippe Grande & Petite Sonnerie 6301A Only Watch charity auction, stainless steel, one-off |
Christie's Geneva · 2024 | $17.30M |
| 05 | Patek Philippe Ref. 1518 in Stainless Steel Perpetual calendar chronograph, 1943, one of four ever made |
Phillips Geneva · 2016 | $11.14M |
| 06 | Patek Philippe Ref. 2523 "South America" Yellow-gold world-timer, cloisonné enamel dial, 1953 |
Phillips Geneva · 2026 | $10.20M |
| 07 | Patek Philippe Ref. 1518 in Pink Gold Prince Toussoun of Egypt, with original certificates |
Sotheby's · 2021 | $9.57M |
| 08 | Patek Philippe Ref. 2499 Gobbi Milan Pink gold, 1957, signed by Italian retailer Gobbi |
Sotheby's Hong Kong · 2022 | $7.68M |
| 09 | Patek Philippe Ref. 1415 Platinum World Time Originally bought by Chairmee Lee of Samsung |
Phillips · 2021 | $4.03M |
| 10 | Philippe Dufour Duality No. 8 Pink gold, last produced; double escapement |
Phillips · 2021 | $4.00M |
| 11 | F.P. Journe Chronomètre à Résonance "Souscription" Solid brass movement, twin balance wheels |
Phillips · 2021 | $5.98M |
| 12 | Patek Philippe Ref. 5004T in Titanium Only Watch charity, split-seconds chronograph perpetual |
Christie's · 2013 | $3.99M |
| 13 | Patek Philippe Sky Moon Tourbillon Ref. 6002G 12 complications, double-sided dial |
Phillips Geneva · 2026 | $4.18M |
| 14 | Rolex "The Unicorn" Daytona White-gold Cosmograph, bark-pattern bracelet, c.1970 |
Phillips Geneva · 2018 | $5.94M |
| 15 | Patek Philippe Calibre 89 Yellow gold, 33 complications, 150th anniversary |
Antiquorum · 2009 | $5.04M |
"The auction room is the only place where horology meets capitalism in real time."
Patterns in the data
Look closely at the ledger and three patterns emerge. The first is the dominance of Patek Philippe: nine of the top ten, and in any reasonable counting, fourteen or fifteen of the top twenty. No other house comes close. The second is the importance of provenance — Henry Graves Jr., Paul Newman, Egyptian princes, Samsung heirs. A watch with a name attached to it sells, on average, for two to three times what the same reference sells for without one. The third is the rise of the independents. F.P. Journe and Philippe Dufour now appear regularly in the seven-figure range, where in 2010 they would have been four- and five-figure outliers.
The most expensive single watch auction in history took place on the weekend of 9–10 May 2026, when Phillips's Geneva Watch Auction XXIII generated CHF 74.8 million across two sessions — roughly $96 million at the day's rate, with forty-three new world records set. The previous record, also held by Phillips, was set just six months earlier at $83 million. The market, in 2026, is not just alive; it is setting records every six months.
The auction house, today
Three houses dominate the watch trade in 2026: Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips. Phillips, under the leadership of Aurel Bacs (whose Bacs & Russo team have been responsible for most of the great post-2014 records), has emerged as the catalyst for the modern market. Christie's Geneva sales remain the gold standard for vintage Patek. Sotheby's Hong Kong has, over the past decade, become the centre of gravity for Asian collectors and for any sale involving a contemporary Patek Nautilus or Aquanaut.
Antiquorum, the firm that invented the modern watch auction, continues to operate but no longer drives the market. The trade has moved upmarket. The watches that mattered in 1989 — single-signed Patek Calatravas in the low five figures — have, in some cases, multiplied by a hundred. The watches that will matter in 2050 are, by definition, the ones that have not yet been auctioned.