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LIFE STYLE
Time Is On My Side (And It’s Expensive), Yes It Is! [by Carina Zaragoza] Hey all you LawCrossing Weekenders, do you know what time it is? Give up? Well, have your checkbook ready, because it’s time to buy the world’s most expensive watch.
In this day in age, the world revolves around time. There’s no getting around it. You have
Patek Phillipe was first founded in Geneva
to be at work on time. Your lunch break can
in 1839. The company employs craftsmen
only last so long. Your favorite show airs at
who are master watchmakers, capable of
a certain time. Even your phone conversa-
designing and finishing the most complicated
tions have to be timed thanks to peak-hour
watch movements. Other specialists such
minute limits. Since everything you do
as goldsmiths, chainsmiths, enamellers,
revolves around the clock (no pun intended,
jewelers, and engravers are also part of this
or was it?), you might as well have the most
exceptional watch-making firm.
valuable watch keeping time for you. Wow the next person who asks you for the time by
Getting back to the amazing race, sev-
referring to your Patek Phillipe. And if you
eral watches were made as a result of the
strive to own only one-of-a-kind pieces, as
commission. But it was Henry Graves, Jr.
all LawCrossing members should, then buy
who won. It took three years to design and
the most famous Patek Phillipe. Handmade
five years to produce his trophy prize, an
by the world’s finest watchmakers, this time
incredibly beautiful and complicated watch.
piece is one for the ages.
It has twenty-four complications displaying twenty-four different
It all started in the 1920’s. During the Gilded
types of information
Age, everything was about flash and pizzazz.
- two faces, nine dials,
The more objects one owned, the higher up
and eighteen pointers.
in society he or she (mostly he) was. Hmm,
Some of the mechani-
why does that sound so familiar? Oh yeah,
cal functions unique to
that’s how society works now too. And that’s
this watch are perpet-
why you’ve got to run out and buy the world’s
ual calendar phases of the moon, equation
most expensive watch. More on this unique
of time, a star chart for the New York sky, a
piece later. For now, back to the origins of
minute repeater, and an alarm. Pretty fancy
the watch.
for a watch made in 1933. The watch is gold and has 70 jewels. No wonder, then, that it is
Two rich entrepreneurs battled one another
worth $11 million dollars.
and raced to own a watch with the greatest number of complications. Complications
But what’s $11 million to a LawCrossing
simply refer to features on a watch other
member? Pocket change. And with that out of
than time. For instance, a mechanical func-
the way, you’ll have room for your new Patek
tion that indicates the sunrise and sunset is a
Phillipe pocket watch.
complication. Henry Graves, Jr., a New York financer, and James Ward Packard, an engineer, both commissioned Patek Philippe to make them exclusive complicated watches.
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