On Saturday, a limited-edition Patek Philippe Ref. 5711 Nautilus with a Tiffany Blue dial sold for $6.5 million at a watch auction run by Phillips in association with Bacs & Russo.
All proceeds from the sale, held in New York City, will go to the Nature Conservancy.
Phillips called the watch created by the Patek-Tiffany collaboration “historic” and “highly important,” which is striking since the watch premiered only last week. It is part of Patek’s final run of Nautilus Ref. 5711/1As, which the company announced it will stop producing in February. GQ has called the reference “the most coveted watch in the world.”
Just 170 of these Patek-Tiffany watches will be made, and, aside from this one sold at auction, they will all be sold exclusively at Tiffany & Co. boutiques in New York City, San Francisco, and Beverly Hills, Calif.
Patek chose to produce only 170 of them to commemorate the 170th anniversary of the relationship between Patek and Tiffany. (The two companies have worked together since 1851.)
This recent Phillips auction was a milestone in other ways. All told, it brought in $35.9 million, making it the highest-value watch auction in U.S. history.
Other highlights included a $667,800 hammer price for the Omega Speedmaster owned and worn by Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man. That price is more than 60 times its original estimate. The watch was acquired by the Omega Museum.
A George Daniels tourbillon pocket watch, the fourth timepiece ever produced by the independent watch master, achieved $1.7 million
The sale caps a banner year for Phillips watch sales. All told, the London-based auction house sold $209.4 million in watches in 2021—an 89% increase over the prior year. It also sold 100% of the watches up for sale, a first for any auction house in history, a statement said.
In November, Phillips’ watch sale in Geneva set a new world record for a timepiece auction, raking in $74.5 million.
Top: The Patek Ref. 5711/1A-018 Nautilus with Tiffany robin’s-egg blue face (photo courtesy of Patek Philippe)
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