The De Beers Group CEO also discussed tariffs, Desert Diamonds, and the pending sale of De Beers in an interview with Michelle Graff.
Patek Philippe watches set new auction records
A pair of Patek Philippe watches set new world auction records for their respective references at Antiquorum’s fall sale held Saturday in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong--A pair of Patek Philippe watches set new world auction records for their respective references at Antiquorum’s fall sale held Saturday in Hong Kong.
The auction house’s fall sale of “Important Modern and Vintage Timepieces” took place at the Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong hotel. A total of 246 timepieces were offered in the auction, which totaled $5 million and sold 79 percent by lot and 116 percent by value.
The top lot of the sale was the very rare Patek Philippe Ref. 5104P platinum minute repeater perpetual retrograde calendar skeletonized watch, which sold for $799,655 following an “intense bidding war,” Antiquorum said. The nearly $800,000 sale of this watch set a new world record for this particular reference.
A Patek Philippe Ref. 3939 tourbillon minute repeater with a special dial in pink gold, a watch highly sought after by collectors and projected to be the sale’s top lot, sold for $722,268, not quite hitting its high pre-sale estimate of $800,000. It was a world record price for this particular reference.
The third highest-grossing lot of the sale was another Patek Philippe watch, a Ref. 6104G celestial diamond in 18-karat white gold with date, mean time indication, nocturnal sky chart of the Northern Hemisphere, moon phases and orbit, and time of the meridian passage of Sirius and moon. It sold for $425,622.
Other brands with strong sales at Antiquorum’s fall auction included Vacheron & Constantin and Jaeger Le-Coultre.
Antiquorum’s next sale is scheduled for Nov. 10 in Geneva.
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