A Summer Record and Controversial Curiosities

One of the most controversial historic lots went under the hammer this July.

There were two main events on the pre-owned watch market this July. One was the sale of a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso on July 28 by American Alexander Historical Auctions — a watch which once belonged to Adolf Hitler. The second set a current record for this year at the Antiquorum Monaco Auction: EUR 6,747,500 for the Richard Mille Ref. RM 52-01 Brown Sapphire RMV.

The Führer's Watch

The most discussed event was of course the sale of a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso watch which had belonged to Adolf Hitler at Alexander Historical Auctions in the United States. The buyer who wished to remain anonymous obtained it for the tidy sum of USD 1,100,000.

The story of the model's origins is shrouded in secrecy. The Maryland auctioneers contacted the Jaeger-LeCoultre manufacture in Le Sentier for information, who were told there aren't any records in their archives whatsoever regarding how the watch was manufactured.

The watch was made for a major manufacturer and retailer of watches and jewelry in Munich called Andreas Huber, who had boutiques in Munich, Berlin, Dusseldorf and Nuremberg in Nazi Germany. However, Andreas Huber's factory was bombed before the end of the World War II and the company's wartime documents went up in flames.

The engraving on the caseback of the yellow-gold watch case measuring 38 × 23 mm was clearly rendered by an artisan subcontracted by Andreas Huber to fulfill the buyer's wishes. According to one version, the watch was gifted to Adolf Hitler during a celebration marking the victory of Hitler's Nazi party in the German federal elections on March 5, 1933.

According to another version, the watch was presented on Hitler's 44th birthday when the dictator was named an honorary citizen of Bavaria along with former Chancellor Paul von Hindenburg. The engraved date of the election victory (5.3.33) is accompanied by another two dates on the caseback: Hitler's date of birth (20.4.89) and the date he was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany (30.1.33).

The caseback is also engraved with the Nazi party acronym "N.S.D.A.P." (formally the National Socialist German Workers' Party), the initials "A" and "H", the "Reichsadler" (German Imperial Eagle) and a swastika encircled by a wreath of oak leaves. The engraving is filled with red, white and black lacquer.

The dial is only inscribed with the Huber logo, without any mention of the watch's original manufacturer. This was a typical practice back in those years, when the unbelievable success of the Reverso introduced in 1931 led to almost all major watch and jewelry retailers ordering them from Jaeger-LeCoultre, not to mention watchmakers headed by Patek Philippe himself.

The model houses caliber no. 410-11U, history's second hand-wound Reverso movement with a small seconds dial at 6 o'clock. The auctioneers managed to clarify that a French soldier, Sgt. Robert Mignot, seized the watch as "spoils of war" to keep for himself when storming Hitler's Berghof retreat near Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps.

No shortage of people are outraged today by the fact that so many watch collectors were interested in obtaining the dictator's watch. They’re outraged that Hitler is so popular and that such a high a price was ultimately paid for the watch. But there's a need for more thorough analysis here.

We can't say for sure that the watch was acquired by a watch collector, as the piece was auctioned off alongside miscellaneous Nazi memorabilia. Moreover, the organizers had predicted the watch would go for USD 2-4 million. So there weren't that many people vying to obtain Hitler's watch at all costs. This would also explain why other watches listed at this auction didn't raise massive sums of money either.

Take the gold-cased Chronographe Suisse as an example. It likely houses the famous Venus 171 movement with two counters in a north-south configuration. This chronograph was a gift from the Italian "Il Duce" Benito Mussolini to the famous Nazi Waffen-SS commando Otto Skorzeny: a token of gratitude for being rescued from captivity on September 12, 1943. The watch sold for USD 35,000.

Alexander Historical Auctions gave the following response to the barrage of questions about what good could come of advertising and selling the watches of history’s villains: "Whether good or bad history, it must be preserved. If you destroy history, there is no proof that it happened," said Senior Vice President Mindy Greenstein.

Record of the Year

Holding watch auctions to coincide with the prestigious Monaco Yacht Show seemed like a very good idea at the beginning. Who wouldn't have agreed? At the beginning of the new millennium, this vanity fair in Monte Carlo tended to be the place where the world's wealthiest people would meet to boast about each other's yachts, to hold informal talks in a rather pleasant informal setting, and to just have a good time.

So the organizers at Antiquorum though, why not offer them beautiful expensive watches while they're there? It was already the world's leading auction house specializing in watches back then, led by none other than Osvaldo Patrizzi.

That was when the Monaco Yacht Show was timed to coincide with the Only Watch charity auction, hosted by Antiquorum at the time. But one little mistake in the calculated risk let them down. Wealthy people were reluctant to part with money in so-called impulse buying.

Unique watches went for sensationally low sums of money, although the benchmark that sales price didn't often exceed was a helm upgrade on a modern yacht, noted by President of Patek Philippe & Co. Thierry Stern.

Models by the very same Patek Philippe were rare exceptions. Take the Patek Philippe Ref. 5016A-010 as an example: the minute repeater watch with a perpetual calendar and tourbillon in a stainless steel case was estimated to go for CHF 700,000 – 900,000 and sold for CHF 7,300,000 in 2015. 

Before this remarkable record, Antiquorum underwent a number of dramatic and fateful changes. In 2006, Osvaldo Patrizzi sold 50 percent to the Japanese Artist House Holdings for the staggering sum of around USD 30 million.

This was followed by a scandalous break-up with Patrizzi and a series of unwise and unsuccessful decisions. Not long after that in 2008, the shares of Artist House were ultimately acquired by the American businessman Robert Maron for an undisclosed amount.

Since then, Antiquorum has run approximately ten online auctions each year but has remained committed to the Monaco Yacht Show, and there are blue moons in every year. On July 19th, that blue moon was the Richard Mille "RM 52-01" "Skull Tourbillon", the so-called "Vanitas Vanitatum" (Lat. "vanity of vanities"), auctioned off in Monte Carlo for EUR 6,747,500. 

This watch is a hybrid of two models: the RM 052 Tourbillon Skull from 2012 (limited to 21 pieces, each priced just under EUR 1 million) and the RM 056 (the first tonneau-shaped watch in the world with a case made of solid sapphire, the RM 056, limited to 5 pieces introduced at SIHH 2012, priced at just under two million Swiss francs).

The main thing that makes this watch interesting is its case. Naturally occurring pure sapphire with an authentic brown tone (not to be confused with brandy) is encountered on an extremely rare basis, only found in the wild in East Africa around Tanzania and Madagascar, which is why it's very highly valued.

The three case parts (bezel, caseband and caseback) were machined and ground from a solid block of sapphire crystal, which took forty 24-hour days of non-stop work around the clock on a specially purchased specialist CNC machine. 

Moreover, nothing cracked or clouded, and an anti-glare coating was even applied to the bezel to create a stylish contrast. The result was a true masterpiece and a work of art in haute joaillerie, which is why it went for such a high price.

This is all the more significant considering the uncertain times we're living in, when many prefer not to take risks while others do the opposite and scramble to protect their savings amid rapidly growing inflation. 

As far the other auctions are concerned, you could say they went by without any memorable moments. The only event that was memorable has to do with the uncomfortable question of an apprehensive bid for the future of Grand Seiko.

A model called Grand Seiko "Genbi Valley" Ref. SBGW277 occupied the prominent position of second place in an auction held by the reputable auctioneer Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo at the Timepieces For HSNY (Horological Society of New York): 2022 Charity Auction.

They only raised an auction total of USD USD 124,362. The model in a steel case measuring 37.3 mm in diameter was released in 2021. It was limited to a 140-piece series exclusively for the U.S. market and honors the work of Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō.

Its dial is decorated in the bright green color of grass, drawing on the Japanese artistic technique of "Kirazuri", where mica powder is mixed into pigments. The price raised was admittedly modest at USD 16,380. But that's still more than triple its retail price, and the estimate was admittedly USD 2,000 – 4,000. To quote the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, "the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."