BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
Last week, the Phillips New York Watch Auction XIII took place, and a wide range of impressive watches went under the hammer. Some of my favourites include a rather tasty De Bethune DB28 which went for just under $90,000 (nearly $40,000 above its expected price), an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Tourbillon which went for just over $152,000 (matching its expected price) and a stunning Philippe Dufour Duality “No.1” which far exceeded its $2m expected price by selling for nearly $3.1m. There was even a Harry Winston Opus No.2 up for grabs. However, the watch that ended up stealing the spotlight from them all was the F.P.Journe FFC Prototype, owned by Francis Ford Coppola himself.
We’ve already talked a bit about this particular watch here on WristReview, so I won’t get too much into the details of the mechanics. What you need to know is that these watches were born from a conversation between Coppola and Journe over the idea of using a human hand to display the time, as opposed to traditional watch hands.
All of the FFC watches have attracted immense interest from VIPs and collectors who can afford their high prices. Officially, they are priced upon request, although some pre-owned pieces can be found online for around the $1 million mark, it seems. This particular FFC? Well, being a prototype piece and one owned by Coppola, it was estimated to sell for in excess of $1m and sell in excess of, and it did as the new owner paid $10,755,000 for it.
I think we can all agree that some folks just have too much money. I’m not bashing the watch, not at all, and I’m not bashing expensive watches either, but there comes a point where the prices of these things get so high and so unrelatable that I just have no reason to care. It’s the same with cars, in a way. I like them, and I like most dream of owning, nay even sitting in, a Bugatti or a Pagani or a Koenigsegg, but they’re just so far away that I lose all interest. So, there’s my cheerful ending for this article, I suppose. Here’s the priciest watch from Phillips’ auction. It’s the most expensive F.P. Journe watch ever sold at auction. Congratulations to the buyer and to F.P. Journe, now let’s all go and do something else.
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