The season for watch auctions is upon us, with several substantial catalogs having come and gone in recent weeks, pockets turned out and records set. For those that can partake, it involves doling out unheard of sums for heard of watches. For the media, these auctions seem to be the most important news of the year aside from the major trade shows. The watch auction apparatus is perpetuated and maintained primarily by the auction houses—Phillips, Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Antiquorum among them—and serves to benefit small groups within the industry while disadvantaging the larger watch community and those that seek to join it.
How Auction Houses Build Hype
Auction houses curate collections of watches for sale and have an imperative to convince buyers that those watches are special in some way—that they are worth bidding on. There’s a lot of signaling, even in how the auctions are titled. This year, Christie’s dubbed its auction “Rare Watches,” though many of the watches were modern models that are simply hard to get and those that were rare were for the most part no rarer than any other luxury timepiece with limited production.
Sotheby’s took a different tack and called its auction “Important Watches: Part II,” which seems even more galling; while there are plenty of rare timepieces, there are far fewer properly important watches. The Cartier Santos is an important watch. The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms is an important watch. The Seiko Astron is an important watch. A Rolex Yacht-Master 40 is not. A pink gold Moser Endeavour Perpetual is not. An Hublot Big Bang Unico made entirely of sapphire is not. The auction houses, though, set the tone with the name of the auction, suggesting to potential buyers that the lots in the catalog all have some significance, even when they don’t.
The lot essays, however, are where significance is usually communicated in detail. Some items don’t have much to be explained. Take Christie’s essay for the Rolex Oyster Perpetual 41 in coral red: “Highly attractive, the present timepiece is offered in ‘like new’ overall condition and is offered with the full set of accessories. Its overall appeal is enhanced by the ‘coral red’ dial.” Simple and straightforward for a watch that is mostly just that.
Some essays, especially those of vintage timepieces, have to establish provenance, and some auction houses seem eager to establish it even where it may not be clear. Take the recent auction by Phillips of a black PVD Audemars Piguet Royal Oak “Karl Lagerfeld” from 1973.
Lagerfeld is known to have worn such a watch and the auction house stated that the lot was “understood to have been worn” by Lagerfeld. Never mind that the only supporting evidence is that the watch was sold in 1973 in Rome, where Mr. Lagerfeld lived at the time, that he was known to have owned the same PVD model no later than 1974, and that neither Audemars Piguet nor Phillips were able to trace the ownership further back than 1995. Still, all the wording is suggestive of this being Lagerfeld’s actual watch. (The real kicker: Audemars Piguet ultimately bought the alleged RO “Karl Lagerfeld” for just under $1 million.)
These efforts by the auction house to establish and portray importance and significance go unchecked by the most trusted media outlets, who seem all too happy to provide coverage before, during, and after the auctions, celebrating the exciting lots, the bidding action, and the mind-blowing results.
The Wider Impact
In an article covering some of the recent auctions, Hodinkee’s astonishingly prolific Logan Baker remarked of the Royal Oak auctions: “five one-million-dollar watches in a single year, for a single model, should always warrant a celebration.” But I have to wonder, who is celebrating and why? For most of us, there’s no cause for a party. The outcomes of all auctions resonate throughout the market. Royal Oaks new and old, for example, will continue to increase in price and become harder to obtain, with sellers emboldened by the sky-high auction results.
As far as I can sort, there are four groups benefitting from the current trend of auction results: auction houses, brands, existing owners, and watch sellers. These high prices translate to more money for those groups. That coral red Rolex OP that Christie’s sold hammered at $50,400, despite being readily available on the secondary market for half that amount. Who wins? The auction house builds upon its reputation for exciting results and pockets a larger-than-expected fee. Rolex gets to watch a dark horse model (the Tiffany blue has been the favorite of the OP41 color dials) increase in popularity as the brand’s reputation for profitable watches increases. Existing owners see the potential resale value of their OP increase, with some undoubtedly pushed to list. Watch sellers will continue to increase prices, using the auction result as justification. Who loses? Everyone else.
Concluding Thoughts
The end result of this entire dance is decreased accessibility to new and old watches alike, more barriers to entry to the wider watch world, and the increase of the watches-as-assets mindset. The extreme premiumization, as Bonham’s Hans-Kristian Hoejsgaard put it, wards off would-be collectors, enthusiasts, and casual consumers, and as results continue their upward trend, watches are increasingly seen as investment opportunities. To be sure, if these results do anything to grow the world of watches, it’s an expansion populated not by those with high regard for horology, but by those with a high regard for return on investment.
This is all just shouting in an empty room, though. The auctions of watches with sometimes manufactured relevance will continue apace. The results will continue to stagger. We are past the point of doing anything about it. Even if we weren’t, those who could do something have no interest in doing so.
Header image courtesy of Hodinkee