In December 1999, one of the most complicated watches ever made the most expensive watch ever sold when it was hammered down for $ 11,000,000 at Sotheby’s.
Gold pocket watch, which featured 24 complications, was the result of a long competition between two magnates of America’s gilded age. Finance Henry Graves Jr. New York and Ohio auto engineer James Ward Packard vied with each bell with the greatest number of complications are possible. (Complications are mechanical functions of the watch other than the hours, minutes and seconds.) Packard commissioned 13 complicated watches from Patek Philippe between 1900 and 1927. They have a calendar with phases and age continued Monday, indication of sunrise and sunset, and a chart depicting the heavenly stars stars in the sky over Packard’s home in Ohio.
Not to be outdone, Henry Graves Jr. also commissioned a series of complicated watches from Patek Philippe, culminating in a watch that has three years to design and five years to produce. When completed in 1933, the clock had a different horological function for each hour of the day and a graph of the night sky over the house of Graves’ in New York.
Graves died in 1953, and his heirs sold the watch Time Museum in Rockford, Illinois, in 1968. When the museum closed, the watch was among 80 other pieces from the collection deaccessioned and sold at Sotheby’s in 1999. Together, they have $ 28,000,000. Tombs of watching a presale estimate of $ 3,000,000 to $ 5 million and sold for $ 11,003,500 for a anonymous collector.
Forbes Fact: In 1989, Patek Philippe, at the most complicated in the world, Caliber 89, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the firm. A pocket watch as graves and Packard, Caliber 89 has 33 functions and 1,728 unique parts. Its complications include the date of Easter, sidereal time and a celestial chart with stars 2800.
