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Piece of the Week: The $5.8M Patek Philippe ‘Sky Moon Tourbillon’
Sold by Christie’s Hong Kong, this masterwork of complications now holds the record for most expensive watch ever auctioned online.
The original owner of this Patek Philippe Grand Complications “Sky Moon Tourbillon” bought it at the Patek Philippe boutique in Geneva in 2015. On Wednesday, the watch got a new owner, who paid $5.8 million for the timepiece at Christie’s Hong Kong’s online watch auction.
On Wednesday, Christie’s Hong Kong sold one of Patek Philippe’s “Grand Complications” for nearly $6 million to an internet bidder, raising the bar for online watch auctions.
The Patek Philippe Grand Complications “Sky Moon Tourbillon” Ref. 6002G-001 is a double-face wristwatch featuring 12 complications and a total of 705 parts.
The complications include: minute repeater with two “cathedral” gongs, tourbillon, perpetual calendar, retrograde date, moon phases, leap year indication, and, on the second dial, sidereal time, sky chart, and phases and orbit of the moon.
The complications are housed in a 44 mm hand-engraved 18-karat white gold case with, in the case of this watch, a blue cloisonné and champlevé enamel dial and blue alligator strap.
At Christie’s online auction held Wednesday, the hammer came down at $45.5 million Hong Kong dollars ($5.8 million) on this particular Sky Moon Tourbillion, making it the most expensive watch ever auctioned online.
The Sky Moon Tourbillon accounted for more than half of the auction’s total ($8.4 million, with 93 percent of lots sold) and demonstrated consumers’ continued willingness to buy significant pieces online, said Alexandre Bigler, vice president and head of watches for Christie’s Asia Pacific.
“The outstanding results established for ‘Watches Online: Top of the Time’ demonstrate the power of Christie’s online sale platform to present exceptional lots and achieve top prices, on par with our live sales,” he said.
“There continues to be an extremely vibrant market for watches across the world, evidenced through the avid global bidding this sale witnessed.”
For full results from Christie’s Hong Kong’s “Watches Online: Top of the Time” sale, visit the auction house’s website.
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The Patek Philippe Grand Complications “Sky Moon Tourbillon” Ref. 6002G-001 is a double-face wristwatch featuring 12 complications and a total of 705 parts.
The complications include: minute repeater with two “cathedral” gongs, tourbillon, perpetual calendar, retrograde date, moon phases, leap year indication, and, on the second dial, sidereal time, sky chart, and phases and orbit of the moon.
The complications are housed in a 44 mm hand-engraved 18-karat white gold case with, in the case of this watch, a blue cloisonné and champlevé enamel dial and blue alligator strap.
The sidereal time, sky chart, and phases and orbit of the moon complications are located on the reverse side of the Patek Philippe “Sky Moon Tourbillon.” The watch is one of the Patek Philippe’s “Grand Complications,” the umbrella term applied to the most complicated, rarest watches the company makes.
At Christie’s online auction held Wednesday, the hammer came down at $45.5 million Hong Kong dollars ($5.8 million) on this particular Sky Moon Tourbillion, making it the most expensive watch ever auctioned online.
The Sky Moon Tourbillon accounted for more than half of the auction’s total ($8.4 million, with 93 percent of lots sold) and demonstrated consumers’ continued willingness to buy significant pieces online, said Alexandre Bigler, vice president and head of watches for Christie’s Asia Pacific.
“The outstanding results established for ‘Watches Online: Top of the Time’ demonstrate the power of Christie’s online sale platform to present exceptional lots and achieve top prices, on par with our live sales,” he said.
“There continues to be an extremely vibrant market for watches across the world, evidenced through the avid global bidding this sale witnessed.”
For full results from Christie’s Hong Kong’s “Watches Online: Top of the Time” sale, visit the auction house’s website.
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