ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Lead image of Vianney Halter La Résonance courtesy of Phillips.
Can you feel it in the air? Auction season is almost here.
Things kick off over in Switzerland next weekend (Nov. 5 - 6) when Phillips and Antiquorum host their respective sales on Saturday and Sunday. Christie's and Sotheby's will then host their own auctions over the following days before the sale calendar officially moves on to Hong Kong at the end of November and New York at the beginning of December.
Tony started us off earlier today with a deep dive on million-dollar results, and I took a look at the George Daniels Spring Case Tourbillon that's going up at Phillips a while back, so here I'm going to review a few of my favorite watches from independent makers that are up for grabs in the Geneva sales. We've got a few other great stories in the works for later this week and next – including a feature on the most interesting pocket watches available! – but let's take a closer look at one of my favorite topics: independent watchmaking.
A Flood Of F.P. Journes
We'll begin with a look over the F.P. Journe watches available across all the major auction houses. The day before their tentpole Geneva sale on Monday, November 7, Christie's will host "Legendary And Unique Watches," a one-of-a-kind single-owner sale that consists of 111 watches from the collection of Jean Todt, former CEO of Ferrari.
One of the most interesting – and viral – watches in the sale is a particularly high-octane example of the complicated Centigraphe chronograph with a "Ferrari Red" dial, the Ferrari prancing horse logo at 12 o'clock, and Todt's initials placed directly underneath the emblem. Christie's confirms that three examples of the watch were made – one went to Todt, another went to the legendary driver Michael Schumacher, and the final example is owned by F.P. Journe himself.
A double-stamped F.P. Journe with the Ferrari logo? Yeah, Formula One fans already have their checkbooks out.
There are a huge number of fascinating watches in the sale, including a metric ton of Richard Mille pieces, but let's keep the focus on ol' François-Paul for a second. There's a set of five unique-piece Journe pieces with matching ruthenium dials (an Octa Chronographe, an Octa Day/Night, an Octa Calendrier, a Tourbillon Souverain, and a Chronomètre à Résonance) that were gifted to Todt by Schumacher and feature Todt's initials on them – those will be auctioned off individually, one after another. But the F.P. Journe with the highest pre-sale estimate in the Christie's sale of Todt's watches is a one-of-a-kind Grande and Petite Sonnerie Minute Repeater Souveraine in steel with a lovely petrol blue dial.
Two other interesting F.P. Journe watches that are up for grabs include a recent-production Octa Automatique Lune in platinum with a white guilloché dial and serial number 001 for sale at Antiquorum and a pre-Souscription example of the Chronomètre à Résonance in platinum with a production date in 1999 that comes prior to the official launch of the Souscription series, at Sotheby's.
ADVERTISEMENT
Prototypes Galore!
Why do we care about prototype watches? It doesn't make a huge amount of sense that collectors would prize early experimental examples over a finalized complete product, but a prototype does offer some intrigue in its unrefined state. A prototype watch will likely not be numbered in series, or if it is, it will carry the coveted double-zero signature (00). It might come directly from the watchmaker themselves. I've identified at least four particularly interesting prototype watches from leading independent makers that will be for sale in the coming week of Geneva auctions.
First up – Vianney Halter introduced his take on the resonance phenomenon earlier this year with the skeletonized La Résonance watch, and Phillips is auctioning off the original titanium prototype during its Geneva Watch Auction: XVI.
Halter's implementation of resonance in a wristwatch movement involves a pair of balance wheels placed on top of one another on a shared balance bridge and connected through the hairsprings via a shared stud holder. The movement architecture is particularly remarkable in that it doesn't feature a single plate but instead a sequence of 13 titanium bridges and more than 30 pillars.
Only seven examples of the La Résonance are able to be produced in each calendar year, and the prototype example at Phillips is naturally the first one to come to auction.
The team at Antiquorum has sourced an original-owner example of Urwerk's UR 102-38 that appears to be more-or-less new-old-stock with its caseback sticker still attached. Antiquorum has confirmed with Urwerk that this specific watch is actually an early prototype UR 102-38 in a case made of a combination of aluminum and platinum in a prototype run with no more than 10 total pieces. If you look at the caseback, you'll notice that the Antiquorum watch is the first of the small series.
Similarly, a little later in the Antiquorum catalog, there's a very cool stainless steel prototype of the H. Moser & Cie. and MB&F 2020 collaboration watch with a cylindrical tourbillon.
Back at Phillips, an 18k pink gold prototype example of Grönefeld's famous 1941 Remontoire – we're pretty big fans of it at Hodinkee, remember? – is available with what I think is a pretty amusing backstory. The watch is number 0 out of the original 188 run and was originally intended only as a sample to show off to retailers, clients, and press. One of the brand's partners in Italy requested the prototype to show off to his client, so Grönefeld sent the watch. They never got it back. Somehow or another, Grönefeld's Italian agent ended up selling the watch to the client, either because something was lost in translation or perhaps because the collector was just that persuasive – who knows. Whatever the case, Grönefeld's 1941 Remontoire prototype has finally resurfaced.
ADVERTISEMENT
A Dabbling Of De Bethunes
We all know that F.P. Journe is hot, hot, hot. It's hard to say that any brand has received as large of a surge in interest over the past three years as Journe, but if another maker could claim the second position, it would be De Bethune.
There are at least three different De Bethune watches available in next week's sales that have caught my eye. Let's start with a DB24 Big Power Super Sport model from the late 2000s that is available through Antiquorum and that the auction house has reason to believe could be a unique piece.
Why? Well, the DB24 is typically only found with either a blue bezel/silver dial or a steel bezel/blue dial configuration, not a monochromatic blue bezel/dial combination as found in this example.
Phillips has sourced a unique-piece prototype example of the famous DW1PS8 Dream Watch 1 in platinum that comes directly from the private collection of De Bethune's co-founder, David Zanetta. The Dream Watch 1 was released in 2008 and is an admittedly bizarre and esoteric creation that barely even looks like a watch, but it was chock-full of influential concepts that have informed De Bethune's approach to watchmaking and design ever since. The three-dimensional moonphase display famously carried over to the brand's flagship DB28 watch, and the Dream Watch also contained the first example of tension-held "floating lugs" and an extremely light high-inertia balance wheel made of silicon. This unique piece prototype is number triple zero (000) and was the personal watch of Zanetta for many years.
There's a second – and final – unique De Bethune watch inside the Phillips catalog. Also coming from David Zanetta's personal watch collection, lot 136 in the sale is a one-of-a-kind prototype of the DB25 in 18k rose gold from 2007. Unlike production examples of the DB25, Zanetta's prototype watch has an unexpected complication in the form of a spherical power reserve display at 12 o'clock on the dial.
You can explore the catalogs and register to bid in all five of the upcoming sales via the below links.
- Antiquorum's Geneva sale takes place November 5-6, 2022, at the Hotel Beau Rivage; click here for more information.
- Christie's single-owner "Legendary And Unique Watches" auction takes place on November 6, 2022, at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues; click here for more information.
- Christie's "Rare Watches" auction takes place on November 7, 2022, at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues; click here for more information.
- Phillips' Geneva Watch Auction: XVI takes place on November 5-6, 2022, at La Reserve; click here for more information.
- Sotheby's "Important Watches" auction takes place on November 9, 2022, at the Mandarin Oriental; click here for more information.
Shop this story
The Hodinkee Shop also sells pre-owned and vintage watches; explore our various collections here.
Top Discussions
Breaking News Patek Philippe's Ref. 5711 Nautilus Is Back As A Unique Piece For Charity
Found Three Of The Best Tourbillon Wristwatches Ever Made, For Sale This Week
Photo Report A Visit To Nomos Glashütte