ON THE BLOCK

The latest scoop on objets d’art sold at auction at unprecedented prices.

PATEK PHILIPPE GRANDMASTER CHIME

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rom contemporary art to Visconti fountain pens, the auction block is the go-to spot for the world’s most coveted trinkets and treasures.

A Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime captured the mind-blowing amount of $31.9 million USD during the eighth biennial charity auction Only Watch in Geneva in November. Featuring two dials in rose gold and black ebony, it’s the first and only version of this timepiece ever produced in stainless steel. The case boasts a patented reversing mechanism and handguilloched hobnail pattern. But the Patek wasn’t the only record-breaker that day. In selling 50 oneoff luxury timepieces, the Christie’s auction itself raised a total of almost $39.7 million USD that day to fund research on Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a degenerative neuromuscular disease affecting 250,000 children, adolescents and young adults around the world. Prior to the Grandmaster Chime reference 6400A-010, the most expensive timepiece sold at auction was the Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication pocket watch, which garnered nearly $23.9 million USD at Sotheby’s Important Watches in 2014. The most expensive wristwatch was the renowned Rolex Daytona “Paul Newman” owned by the actor himself, which went for $18.2 million USD in 2017. A Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime captured the mindblowing amount of $31.9 million USD