Time to buy?

What’s going on in the collectors’ watch market? The sale of the ‘Paul Newman’ Daytona for $17.75m caused jaws to drop around the world, but is it indicative of a global trend or a one-off scoop for auction house Phillips?

We asked Aurel Bacs of Phillips for his thoughts on what this staggering result – and the $28.8m sale that surrounded it, the highest total ever achieved for a watch auction in the United States – means for the worldwide market.

“The fact that we had a record attendance of 700 known and novice collectors at the Winning Icons sale was extraordinarily encouraging for the future of the vintage watch market,” states Bacs. “None of the watches offered was a current production model, illustrating that the vintage market is far from dead and – despite what many people claim – the future does not belong solely to the smart watch.

“I was also extraordinarily happy to see the American market being really... ‘awake’. It’s often been said that America lags behind Geneva and Hong Kong, but this sale gives the ultimate proof that when the watches are of the right quality, at the right estimates, America is right there.

“Lastly, the sale saw an amazing number of record results, including Heuer, Audemars Piguet, IWC, LeCoultre, Breguet, Patek Philippe and Rolex, demonstrating that the vintage watch market is not monotonous, but is multi-faceted across styles, across periods and across budgets.”

Photo by Phillips