Our first live auctions of the fall 2023 season are here! The PHILLIPS Geneva Watch Auction: XVIII, takes place on November 3 and 4, at La Réserve Genève, and the Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVII, takes place on November 24 and 25, at our West Kowloon headquarters. The auction includes more than 180 of the world's finest watches – and naturally, there are a number of extraordinary pieces from Mr. François-Paul Journe, including six in Geneva and 16 in Hong Kong. To celebrate the upcoming auctions, our Senior Editorial Manager highlights a few different F.P. Journe watches with a surprising similarity.
– By Logan Baker
If you’ve browsed almost any watch auction catalog from the past four years, Phillips or otherwise, you’re no doubt familiar with F.P. Journe.
Interest in the Marseille-born, Geneva-based independent watchmaker has surged to an all-time high over the past few years. What was once a niche corner of the watch collecting hobby has exploded in interest and awareness.
Sure, F.P. Journe has always been considered one of the most prominent independent watchmakers of the 21st century, but it would have been nearly impossible for anyone to anticipate the current level of interest in his work.
As interest in F.P. Journe expands, certain niche pockets of enthusiasm have emerged within the brand focused on all sorts of esoteric throughlines. One example that hasn't been discussed as much but has been hiding in plain site is F.P. Journe's use of darker colored dials, typically in black or grey.
Your standard F.P. Journe watch – if there was such a thing – is outfitted with a lighter colored dial, typically a shade of silver or golden yellow. Only on extremely rare occasions do we find an F.P. Journe watch born with a dark dial. They're typically offered only to existing clients and customers – so when you see a darker-colored dial on an F.P. Journe watch, you know that person has a serious collection.
I've outlined three of the most common darker-colored dials you'll come across in the world of F.P. Journe below – and lucky for you, examples of each type will be available in our upcoming auctions in Geneva and Hong Kong.
The Ruthenium Period
F.P. Journe’s earliest wristwatches all utilized movements made of brass; between 1999 and 2003, it was all he used. That changed at the start of 2004, when Journe began to switch over to 18k solid pink gold for all his movement constructions.
Ever the showman, Journe gave his original movement material a brassy encore performance with the release of the so-called Ruthenium Collection, which consisted of five final batches of brass movements that were coated entirely in grey ruthenium. Each batch was limited to 99 pieces total and took the form of either a Chronomètre à Résonance, a Tourbillon Souverain, an Octa Chronographe, an Octa Calendrier, or an Octa Réserve de Marche Jour et Nuit.
Journe then coated the movements and dials of these watches in ruthenium, providing the watches with an attractive uniform grey appearance. Journe hasn’t looked back since completing the Ruthenium Collection; he quickly moved on to 18k pink gold as the primary metal for all his in-house movements. It’s this era that contains many of Journe’s most desirable creations. It’s said that only approximately 2,000 F.P. Journe wristwatches, in total, were produced with brass movements during his earliest years as an independent operation – almost a quarter of that total comes from the Ruthenium run.
Given the huge amount of interest in F.P. Journe watches today, it makes sense that many collectors would be interested in acquiring an early example from Journe’s brass period, which is why many F.P. Journe references with those movements have seen stronger results at auction and consistent higher valuations than their younger siblings with precious-metal movements.
PHILLIPS has sold a total of 12 F.P. Journe wristwatches from the Ruthenium period, and two more are coming up as part of the Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVII. There’s an Octa Chronographe that is number 16 out of the 99-piece run and comes with all all its original accessories. It’s lot 844 and carries an estimate of HKD $550,000 - 1,100,000.
The second Ruthenium Journe in the Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVII is an Octa Calendrier that is number 43 in the 99-piece series. Lot 1004 comes complete with all its original accessories and has an estimate of HKD $480,000 - 950,000.
The Exclusive Black Label Series
No, it's not a Johnnie Walker collaboration, F.P. Journe’s so-called “Black Label” series of watches started as a way for the brand to reward existing and longtime clients with an even more exclusive watch.
Available solely through the brand’s boutique network, “Black Label” watches consist of two attributes – a case made of platinum and a dial coated in inky black lacquer. Outside of those elements, Black Label releases can take the shape of pretty much any of the watches in the F.P. Journe catalog. Black Label watches are only offered to existing F.P. Journe clients and customers, and it’s said that each F.P. Journe boutique receives no more than a single Black Label watch each month for their best customers.
F.P. Journe has made watches with black dials in other case metals – such as stainless steel and 18k pink gold – but only platinum-cased watches quality for the “Black Label” moniker. Additionally, although a Black Label F.P. Journe will always be a “Boutique Edition,” not every Boutique Edition is a Black Label.
PHILLIPS has previously auctioned off a total of 13 Black Label F.P. Journe watches, including the Chronomètre Souverain, the Centigraphe Souverain, and the Octa Lune models, and two more are coming to the table during the Geneva Watch Auction: XVIII – lot 42, a Chronomètre à Resonance from 2007, and lot 106, a Sonnerie Souverain from circa 2015.
This is the third F.P. Journe Sonnerie Souverain to land at PHILLIPS – but it's the the first ever and the only known Sonnerie Souverain with an original black dial to grace the auction market. However, you might recall that Phillips had the pleasure of selling a Sonnerie Souverain with a black dial in January of this year, during our F.P. Journe-dedicated “Concours de Compléxité” online-only auction.
As noted in our original description of the watch, that specific Sonnerie Souverain was actually born with a blue dial, but the owner was able to persuade Journe to swap it out with a black one. The example featured in the upcoming Geneva Watch Auction: XVIII, meanwhile, is confirmed to have been born with a black dial.
Happy Anniversary
Watch brands love to celebrate anniversaries – don’t we all? – and F.P. Journe is no different. But the sexagenarian watchmaker had a rather interesting idea when it came to commemorating the individual anniversaries of the company’s international brand boutiques.
After experimenting with different variants of the Tourbillon Souverain – as seen in the Boca Raton edition featured in the upcoming Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVII – Journe decided it would be more straightforward to create a single limited-edition example of the Centigraphe, his remarkable take on a chronograph, and then offer it exclusively to the boutique’s best clients when the end of each location’s first decade came about.
The Centigraphe Souverain Anniversaire is the watch Journe dreamed up to celebrate the occasion when, in 2014, the company’s boutiques in Tokyo and Hong Kong became the first to hit double digits.
The Anniversaire edition of the Centigraphe Souverain is slightly different than the original production piece, featuring a 40mm polished titanium case with 6N gold accents and a unique ruthenium coated dial that’s been partially skeletonized, revealing portions of the rose gold movement inside. Naturally, each run of Centigraphe Souverain Anniversaire pieces is individually numbered and features the name of the boutique location’s city. This same color and material configuration had previously been used by F.P. Journe in other boutique anniversary pieces such as the Octa Perpétuelle and the Tourbillon Souverain.
It's worth noting that the Centigraphe Souverain – which is the standard, regular production Centigraphe – was discontinued in 2018; therefore, the Centigraphe Anniversaire is the only iteration currently being produced outside of the LineSport collection.
You can learn more, place a bid, and view the entire Geneva Watch Auction: XVIII catalog here, and the Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVII, here.
About Phillips In Association With Bacs & Russo
The team of specialists at PHILLIPS Watches is dedicated to an uncompromised approach to quality, transparency, and client service. Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo holds the world record for the most successful watch auction, with its Geneva Watch Auction: XIV having realized $74.5 million in 2021. Over the course of 2021 and 2022, the company sold 100% of the watches offered, a first in the industry, resulting in the highest annual total in history across all the auction houses at $227 million.
About Logan Baker
Logan has spent the past decade working in watch-focused media, reporting on every aspect of the industry. He joined Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo at the start of 2023 as the department's Senior Editorial Manager. He splits his time between New York and Geneva.
Recommended Reading
A Beginner’s Guide To The World Of F.P. Journe
A Round-Up Of The Greatest F.P. Journe Watches Sold At Phillips (So Far!)