Twenty twenty-three was a remarkable year for Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo.
Our year-end total for auction sales achieved USD $217 million, our second highest annual total after 2022 (USD $227 million), and a figure positioned at 206 percent above our low estimate for the year.
A total of 1,525 lots were offered across our international slate of live and online sales, with 18 watches landing at over the USD $1 million figure. However, our two-and-a-half year white-glove auction streak of 100 percent sell-through came to an end this fall – instead, we sold 99.9 percent of all lots.
That's right, only a single watch passed at a Phillips auction this year.
Our average lot value increased by seven percent year-over-year, arriving at an impressive mean of USD $142,000 per lot. Numerous world auction records were set at Phillips once again, including the highest-ever totals reached at auction for a British-made watch, a Patek Philippe ref. 96, a gem-set Rolex Daytona, a Patek Philippe Nautilus ref. 3700, a Rolex Milgauss, a steel Rolex ref. 6062, and a Casio G-Shock.
In addition to all we achieved at the rostrum during 2023, the Phillips Watches department notched a number of significant internal milestones, as well. Phillips PERPETUAL, our unique boutique concept, opened a new location in Hong Kong inside the Pedder Arcade.
We also expanded our digital marketing team for the first time, bringing on board a full-time editorial manager, videographer, and social media specialist in order to thoughtfully expand our online voice and presence. The result was immedate – the short documentary we developed for May's Imperial Patek Philippe sale was recently awarded a World Luxury Award for an Integrated/Mixed Media Campaign in the Jewelry/Watches category.
And that's just a few of the highlights!
With 2023 officially in our rearview mirror, we wanted to take a moment to look back at the auctions, watches, projects, and storylines that defined our year, making it one of the most memorable yet for the Phillips Watches department.
January
The first month of the year is usually a relatively quiet one in the auction world. It takes a moment to get back up to speed after the winter break, and January tends to be a slower time where we officially turn the page on the prior year and begin to focus on preparing for our spring set of online and live auctions.
However, that wasn't the case this year.
Our first auction of 2023 took place in just the second week of the year. Le Concours de Complexité was a once-in-a-lifetime single-owner online sale held at Phillips that was entirely dedicated to F.P. Journe, featuring some of the independent watchmaker's most coveted and complicated creations. The sale was hosted by our Hong Kong team and comprised 11 exceptional F.P. Journe timepieces.
After a week-long bidding period (1/13-1/20), the total sale result for all 11 watches landed at HKD $23,562,800, including the first watch to break the USD $1 million mark at auction in 2023 (Lot 8005) at any auction house.
January closed with the launch of a brand-new content rubric dedicated to Phillips PERPETUAL. What we call our "Perpetual Picks" series now consists of two articles published per month (read our latest, here and here), highlighting a few of the latest PERPETUAL arrivals, as well as a newsletter – which you can sign up to receive right here.
February
February, similar to January, is a month that for us is typically laser-focused on our upcoming busy spring auction season.
A big highlight, however, came when our own Senior Consultant Aurel Bacs was asked to auctioneer a pair of one-of-a-kind timepieces by F.P. Journe and Richard Mille, at a charity auction in Gstaad, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to supporting Action Innocence.
A unique version of Richard Mille's 67-02, a watch that is heavily associated with French skier Alexis Pinturault, one of the brand’s ambassadors, sold for CHF 600,000. Meanwhile, F.P. Journe donated a unique take on its Octa Automatique with a custom purple dial, referencing Action Innocence's official color scheme. It sold for exactly CHF 1 million, a figure we believe is a record for the model.
Finally, another new content series was launched dubbed "The Indie Insider," focused exclusively on telling stories about leading and up-and-coming independent watchmakers. We published 11 "Indie Insider" columns this year, starting with a focus on the young Swiss-based French independent watchmaker Sylvain Pinaud.
March
March kicked off with our second online auction of the year. The Phillips Watches Online Auction: The Geneva Sessions, Spring 2023 took place between March 9 and 16, totaling CHF 2,890,520, with 100 percent sold by lot and by value.
As the Geneva online auction winded down, things started to heat up in Hong Kong.
On March 16, 2023, we shared that a Patek Philippe ref. 96 owned by Aisin-Gioro Puyi, the last Emperor of the Qing dynasty, alongside a number of other historical artifacts, had been uncovered. The announcement was the result of an intensive three-year research journey led by Phillips specialists around the world to confirm the watch's provenance. We filmed The Imperial Patek Philippe: A Short Documentary — recipient of the 2023 Monaco World Luxury Award — to help reveal the remarkable true story behind the watch.
Two days later, we helped open the doors to Phillips' new Asia headquarters in Hong Kong, situated within the West Kowloon Cultural District. In doing so, Phillips became the first international auction house with a purpose-built saleroom and gallery in Hong Kong. We happily welcomed more than 30,000 visitors during its first two months of operations. Finally, at the end of the month, on March 28, the Phillips Watches Online Auction: The Hong Kong Sessions, Spring 2023 opened up for bidding, featuring a 107-lot catalog.
Back in Geneva, the end of March included the announcement of highlights from May's Geneva Watch Auction: XVII at Phillips, including the inaugural watch released under watch-industry legend Jean-Claude Biver. The watch was shown to the public for the first time at an event outside Geneva on March 26, with numerous Phillips team members in attendance.
Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo was also granted a press pass to attend Watches & Wonders, the luxury watch industry's most important and influential exhibition, which began at the end of March. You can read our coverage of this year's Watches & Wonders, here and here.
April
The Phillips Watches Online Auction: The Hong Kong Sessions, Spring 2023 concluded on April 4, achieving HKD $22,305,645, with 100 percent sold by lot and by value.
On April 11, we announced that the Roger Smith Pocket Watch No.2 would be sold for the first time at auction, with an estimate in excess of USD $1 million, at the Phillips New York Watch Auction: EIGHT, in early June 2023. Roger Smith spent five years crafting the pocket watch by hand, in order to present it to George Daniels, widely considered the most important watchmaker of the 20th century. After reviewing Smith's work with the Pocket Watch No.2, Daniels agreed to take Smith on as his apprentice and heir apparent.
The following day, highlights from the Phillips Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVI, were announced, including the presence of the very first example of a Rexhep Rexhepi Chronomètre Contemporain at auction.
The same month, we published our two-part video series focused on the creation of Naissance d’Une Montre II, a completely hand-crafted wristwatch featuring the collaborative skills of Greubel Forsey, Urwerk, and a young pair of watchmakers known as Oscillon. Our story covering the "The Research Journey Behind The Imperial Patek Philippe" was also published on April 19, followed by the debut of award-winning The Imperial Patek Philippe | A Short Documentary a few weeks later.
May
Finally, auction season!
The Phillips Geneva Watch Auction: XVII, our first live auction of 2023, took place on May 13 and 14, resulting in CHF 47,172,380, with 100 percent sold by lot and by value.
It was the third highest auction result ever achieved by Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo – and also the the third highest total ever achieved in the field of watch auctions. Six hundred collectors attended the auction at Geneva's La Réserve, joined by 1,675 registered online bidders, all competing for the 203 lots that were up for grabs. The average lot price? CHF 232,000.
Highlights included world-record results for a gem-set Rolex Daytona (lot 102, CHF 3,690,000) and a Rolex Milgauss (lot 25, CHF 2,238,000), as well as impressive results such as CHF 3,206,000 for an 18k pink gold Second Series Patek Philippe ref. 2499 (lot 23) and CHF 1,270,000 for the inaugural Biver Carillon Tourbillon (lot 128), a unique titanium carillon repeating tourbillon prototype belonging to Jean-Claude Biver.
Ten days later and our team was in Hong Kong for the Imperial Patek Philippe Sale, an 11-lot auction that took place the night before the much larger Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVI. The total result for the Imperial Patek Philippe Sale was HKD $51,898,000 (USD $6,627,375), with the top lot, the Imperial Patek Philippe itself (lot 3), selling for HKD $49 million (USD $6.2 million). It sold to a Hong Kong-based collector on the phone after six minutes of bidding.
The Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVI took place the following two days, on May 24 and 25, resulting in HKD $181,704,010, with 100 percent sold by lot and by value. The highlight of the sale was the first Rexhep Rexhepi Chronomètre Contemporain to come to auction, which sold for a record price pf HKD $7.2 million (USD $923,696) – you can read Rexhepi's personal pre-auction thoughts on the watch in our interview with him right here.
The combined result of the Imperial Patek Philippe Sale and the Phillips Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVI was HKD $220,570,510 (USD $28,151,257). The two auctions were followed in Hong Kong on May 25 by a multi-category sale hosted by Phillips called "Disruptors," which included 62 lots – 20 of which were watches.
Disruptors was the third auction PHILLIPS has curated in partnership with TK Mak – founder of Blackbird Watch Manual, Blackbird Automotive Journal, and a member of the Advisory Board for Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo – following the success of Retrospective: 2000 – 2020 and SPORTS. The total result for the Disruptors auction was HKD $52,228,610.
June
Our final live auction of the spring season took place on June 10 and 11. The New York Watch Auction: EIGHT totaled USD $26,358,555, with 100 percent sold by lot and by value, and with Roger Smith’s Pocket Watch No.2 leading the pack with a tremendous USD $4.9 million result. It set a new world record for any British timepiece sold at auction; it was also the fourth highest price ever achieved by a pocket watch at auction.
World records were also set for a Patek Philippe "Pristine Forest" ref. 2481 (lot 89, USD $1,117,600), for a vintage Zenith El Primero (lot 126, USD $50,800), and for a watch by Vianney Halter (lot 47, USD $393,700).
A very interesting watch was listed on Phillips PERPETUAL later in the month – you can read more about the unique decimal repeating GMT from Kari Voutiliainen with a mythical twist right here.
Finally, at the end of June, a few members of the Phillips team were invited by Patek Philippe to attend the brand's 2023 Grand Exhibition in Tokyo – the first Grand Exhibition hosted by Patek Philippe after the COVID-19 pandemic. You can discover our impressions of the showcase here.
July
Things typically slow down a bit at Phillips in July. The spring season is officially over, and the fall auctions are still four months away.
However, this July, our New York team hosted an online charity auction with all proceeds going to benefit the Horological Society of New York. A number of watch brands – Jaeger- LeCoultre, Oris, Nomos Glashütte, F.P. Journe – all donated items to be auctioned off.
We ended up raising a cool USD $50,165 for the Horological Society of New York.
We also published the first edition of our new in-depth series of guides to highly collectible watches the first one was focused on the Patek Philippe Chronograph Ref. 5070, which celebrated its 25th anniversary this year.
August
Business began to pick up again at the end of August.
We once again partnered with the annual Geneva Watch Days exhibition – except what was new this year was that we hosted the first-ever charity auction to coincided with the week-long event.
A number of the exhibiting brands donated various items or experiences (no watches) for Geneva Watch Days attendees to bid on. Aurel Bacs once again at the center of the action on the evening of August 30, where – at a makeshift rostrum – he successfully enticed the room full of bidders to spend CHF 109,800 on the assorted lots.
One hundred percent of those funds, naturally, were donated to the Geneva Watchmaking School.
September
September was home to a pair of online auctions in Geneva and Hong Kong.
The Phillips Watches Online Auction: The Geneva Sessions, Fall 2023 took place between September 8 and 15, resulting in a total of CHF 3,669,030, with 100 percent sold by lot and by value.
The Phillips Watches Online Auction: The Hong Kong Sessions, Fall 2023 followed a week later, between September 21 and 28, resulting in a total of HKD $23,557,230, with 100 percent sold by lot and by value.
Highlights for both the Geneva Watch Auction: XVIII and the Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVII were announced this month as well, including the news that we'd be hosting an exhibition dedicated to the history of the Urban Jürgensen brand as part of the preview for the former.
October
October started with a bang: We were proud to host our first-ever event in Vietnam, in Ho Chi Minh City, on October 12 and 13.
Highlights for the New York Watch Auction: NINE came in the middle of the month, headlined by the news of a one-of-a-kind G-Shock made out of 18k solid yellow gold and designed with the help of generative artificial intelligence would be auctioned off during the sale for charity as part of G-Shock's continued 40th anniversary celebration this year.
Phillips PERPETUAL opened a boutique storefront space in Hong Kong's Pedder Arcade building on October 21, the first physical location to open outside of Europe. It joins our flagship Phillips PERPETUAL space in London's Berkeley Square as an all-year-round location, in contrast to our seasonal summer and winter space in Gstaad.
Our video series in support of the Urban Jürgensen exhibition debuted on October 21, highlighting a number of the most important pieces in Dr. Helmut Crott's collection, alongside a lengthy guide to the complete lineage and history of the Jürgensen family watchmaking dynasty.
November
Our first live auction of the fall 2023 season, the Geneva Watch Auction: XVIII, took place on November 3 and 4, at our usual homebase of La Réserve. The two-day auction brought in a total result of CHF 39,055,706 / USD $43,074,538. Over 650 collectors attended in person and over 1,500 bidders competing online, ultimately securing half of the lots offered. Phillips sold three watches above the CHF 2 million mark, along with two others surpassing the CHF 1 million mark.
The average price per lot soared to an impressive CHF 213,000. Notably, Phillips experienced its first and only instance of an unsold lot in the past three years. Merely three watches sold below their low estimates, with the overwhelming majority surpassing their high estimates by a significant margin.
The top ten best-performing lots totaled CHF 13 million by themselves.
The star lot of the sale was the Patek Philippe Nautilus model ref. 3700/1 in platinum, the only known example in this configuration. After a fierce five-minute bidding war between online, phone, and in-the-room collectors, the watch ultimately sold to a phone bidder for a staggering CHF 2,540,500, surpassing its pre-sale high estimate of CHF 2 million. Another memorable moment came early on with lot 12, a Rolex ref. 6062 in stainless steel that our team nicknamed “The New Standard.” It sold for an impressive CHF 2,117,000.
Finally, two exciting results came via a Panerai and a Breguet. The former was a brand-new wristwatch that was born as the result of a collaboration between Panerai and Phillips. The watch utilizes an original vintage Angelus movement inside, and the full sum (CHF 355,600) achieved by the watch's sale (including buyers' premium) was donated to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. The latter, meanwhile, was a beautiful 18k yellow gold Breguet chronograph ref. 3237 from circa 1995 with a special lapis lazuli dial. It sold for CHF 146,050, exceeding its low estimate by a staggering fourteenfold. It was great to see collectors appreciate and recognize the rarity and value of these two watches and brands.
Almost exactly three weeks later, the Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVII took place on November 24 and 25, at our West Kowloon headquarters. Over 1,700 collectors ended up participating in the white-glove sale, which achieved HKD $181,704,010 / USD $23,258,113 over its 211 lots.
The top lot was a previously unknown Patek Philippe ref. 3974 wristwatch cased in platinum, which soared above its pre-sale estimate, eventually landing at over HKD $14 million / USD $1.8 million. Another impressive result came from a vintage Rolex "Stelline" ref. 6062 in yellow gold that sold for over HKD $7 million / USD $910,336.
Following the remarkable record Rexhep Rexhepi result achieved by Phillips Hong Kong earlier this year in May, a second example of the watch – in the same configuration – surfaced in Hong Kong again during this fall season, achieiving a superlative result of HKD $7 million / USD $894,080, just barely short of the May result. Speaking of watches by independent makers, appearing at auction for the first time, a five-piece set of 38mm stainless steel wristwatches made by F. P. Journe sold for a remarkable HKD $8.9 million / USD $1.13 million.
December
December began on a postive note for our Digital Department – our dedicated Phillips Watches Instagram page crossed the 200,000 follower mark on December 4. We celebrated by partnering with Seconde/Seconde, the irreverent social media artist focused on the watch world, on an extra-special post.
A few short days later and the New York Watch Auction: NINE, our final sale of 2023, took place on December 9 and 10, achieving an excellent total of USD $25,952,374 / CHF 22,844,056. That figure marked the highest sale total across all the watch auctions hosted in New York in the fall 2023 season. The result also serves as a tremendous feather in the cap for our New York team, who officially celebrated the department's best-year ever, totaling USD $52.3 million. It also marked three consecutive years of 100-percent sold-through auctions for our New York department.
Leading the auction was an exceptionally preserved Patek Philippe Ref. 1518 in 18k pink gold, which achieved USD $1.8 million, the highest value lot across the industry this season in New York. However, arguably the most memorable lot in the catalog came courtesy Casio G-SHOCK. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of G-SHOCK's invention, the Japanese watchmaker created a one-of-a-kind example crafted from solid 18k yellow gold, with design assistance from generative artificial intelligence, and placed it up for auction, with all proceeds going toward supporting The Nature Conservancy.
The end result for this so-called "Dream Project #2"? A remarkable total of USD $400,050, a world record for any Casio or G-SHOCK timepiece.
We'd like to thank each one of you for bidding, consigning, and even just following along with the Phillips Watches team in 2023! Our plans for 2024 are bigger than ever – we have more auctions, more stories, and even more great watches to share with you than ever before.
Interested in selling a watch at Phillips? Reach out to us at watches@phillips.com with details and one of our specialists will get back to you.
About Phillips In Association With Bacs & Russo
Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo is the worldwide market leader in high-end watch auctions. Under the leadership of Aurel Bacs and Livia Russo, the watch department has auctions in Geneva, Hong Kong and New York. Phillips PERPETUAL launched in 2019, a first-of-its-kind private treaty program offering a highly curated selection of watches sold at fixed prices through physical and digital storefronts.
Over the last decade at Phillips, our international team of specialists and auctioneers have sold many of the rarest and most valuable watches ever known. Additionally, we employ leading watchmakers, researchers, writers, and quality-control specialists, who are all dedicated to bringing the best watches in the world – in the best condition, with the best documentation – to auction. A few of the many records set inside our auction rooms include the most expensive Rolex ever sold (Paul Newman's Rolex “Paul Newman” Daytona, for USD $17,752,500, at Phillips New York, in October 2017), the most expensive vintage Patek Philippe wristwatch ever sold (Patek Philippe ref. 1518 in stainless steel, for CHF 11,002,000 CHF, at Phillips Geneva, in November 2016), and the most expensive timepiece by a British maker (Roger Smith Pocket Watch No. 2, for USD $4,900,000 USD, at Phillips New York, in June 2023).
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