Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo is thrilled to welcome you to The Geneva Sessions, Fall 2025, online auction, running from 12:00 PM CET, Thursday, 4 September, to 2:00 PM CET, Friday, 12 September. The sale features more than 80 different high-end luxury wristwatches, covering everything from A. Lange & Söhne and F.P. Journe to Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe, including the staff favorites highlighted below.
Every season, our specialists comb through the sale to highlight the watches that speak to them most – pieces that might not always be the headliners, but reveal something essential about why we love this field. Sometimes it’s a technical breakthrough, sometimes a design detail, sometimes just the way a watch makes you feel when it’s on the wrist.
In this edition of Specialists’ Picks for the Geneva Sessions, Fall 2025, Online Auction, our team shares personal favorites ranging from avant-garde independents to neo-vintage sleepers and timeless icons. Taken together, these choices show the breadth of watchmaking today: the hidden gems, the bold experiments, and the quietly beautiful creations that make collecting such a rewarding pursuit.
Lot 52: A 2024 Hautlence HL Sphere 01 Unique Piece 'Sapphires' in 18k White Gold
Estimate: CHF 50,000 - 100,000
Alexandre Ghotbi, Head Of Watches, Europe and Middle East
The HL Sphere 01 has left me in awe ever since it arrived in the office. Created by Hautlence, the brand founded in 2004 and known for its avant-garde “TV screen” designs, the Sphere 01 debuted at Baselworld 2019 – the final edition of the fair. It marked a return to the house’s original identity, pairing architectural design with mechanical innovation. Minutes are displayed via a retrograde hand on the right side of the dial, while the hours are shown on the left by a rotating sphere that rotates in seemingly random directions at the top of every hour.
What makes this unique piece stand out even further is the way Hautlence merged its bold mechanism with dazzling gem-setting. The dial is set with blue sapphires that echo the color of the hour sphere. Everyone needs some bling in their life. Add in the audacity of the design, the technical mastery of the movement, and the sheer visual impact, and the HL Sphere 01 becomes one of the most striking watches to appear in our Phillips Geneva Sessions, Fall 2025, Online Auction.
Lot 3: A 2025 Cartier Cloche in Platinum 'Rue de la Paix 13'
Estimate: CHF 30,000 - 60,000
Benoit Repellin, Worldwide Head of Jewelry
As a jewelry specialist, I was honored to be invited to select a favorite watch from the upcoming Watches online auction. Naturally, I chose a Cartier – specifically, the Cloche, one of the Maison’s most iconic designs. First introduced in the 1920s, the Cloche was relaunched in 2021 as part of Cartier’s Privé collection. The model here is the Cloche Rue de la Paix, named after the brand’s historic boutique at 13 Rue de la Paix in Paris. It features a salmon dial with classic Roman numerals, except at twelve o’clock, where the numeral 13 appears in reference to the boutique’s address.
The watch carries all the hallmarks of Cartier elegance: a platinum case, a ruby cabochon crown, and the bold geometry that has defined the Cloche for a century. I find it particularly meaningful to highlight this design in the same year that marks the hundredth anniversary of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, the 1925 Paris exhibition that gave the Art Deco movement its name. A hundred years after its debut, the Cloche remains timeless, iconic, and strikingly contemporary.
Lot 54: An MB&F Horological Machine 3 'Star Cruiser' in 18k White Gold
Estimate: CHF 20,000 - 40,000
Clément Finet, Specialist, Perpetual, Gstaad
The HM3 Star Cruiser is one of the most important early creations from MB&F. First introduced in 2009, with this particular example dating to 2010, it represents the very first iteration of the HM3 before later variations like the Frog or the MegaWind appeared. It followed the HM2, which Max Büsser described as a “space station.” In a playful reversal, the HM3 became the spaceship leading to that station. Most crucially, it was the first Horological Machine to feature a truly three-dimensional time display – a design element that would go on to define nearly every HM creation that followed.
That three-dimensional display takes shape through two tower-like pods rising from the case, each showing the hours and minutes in a way that feels more like sculpture than watchmaking. The watch also incorporates MB&F’s signature battle-axe rotor, mounted on ceramic ball bearings so it spins with remarkable fluidity. The HM3 Star Cruiser is not just visually striking but historically significant: one of the earliest MB&F machines, produced in very small numbers before the brand grew into the institution it is today. For collectors, it is precisely these early, low-production examples that hold the most allure – making this Star Cruiser a compelling highlight of the upcoming online auction.
Lot 65: A Kross Studio Tourbillon with Turquoise Dial
Estimate: CHF 30,000 - 60,000
Marcello de Marco, Specialist, Business Development Associate
For the September Geneva online sale, I wanted to go a little off the beaten path and chose this unusual creation from Kross Studio. Founded only in 2020, the brand has already earned a reputation for combining high watchmaking with daring design. This timepiece features a central floating tourbillon – elevated and hovering above the dial – encircled by three “spider” turquoise stones intersecting across its surface. Minutes are displayed on an outer disc, hours on an inner disc, while the lower third of the dial reveals a carved plate showing the gear train connected to the balance wheel. Two independent gears drive peripheral hands that circle the dial, ensuring nothing obstructs the view of the tourbillon at the center.
The turquoise backdrop provides vivid contrast, allowing the hands to stand out clearly for excellent legibility. The technical ingenuity continues with the case design: there is no crown. Instead, a retractable central handle allows you to wind the watch, while a discreet pusher on the band lets you set the time. The strap can be released with a simple press of another button. This creates a case that feels seamless and organic, like a smooth pebble in the hand. The result is not only visually striking but also deeply practical, reflecting the brand’s focus on detail and engineering.
Kross Studio has already made waves with collaborations tied to Marvel and Game of Thrones, blending pop culture with high watchmaking in ways rarely seen. At 45mm in diameter and 20mm thick, this is not a small watch, but the domed crystal and flowing case design give it a presence that is more sculptural than bulky. Even on a smaller wrist, the watch wears surprisingly well, and the glowing turquoise dial makes it a pleasure to look at from every angle.
Lot 9: An early 2000s Minerva Pythagore in 18k White Gold
Estimate: CHF 5,000 - 10,000
Logan Baker, Senior Editorial Manager
The Minerva Pythagore is one of the true hidden gems of the neo-vintage era. Minerva has been producing its own movements in the same Villeret workshop since 1902, quietly maintaining a tradition of in-house, small-scale watchmaking while others chased volume. I even bought a 34mm steel Pythagore from the mid-1990s last year – it’s that compelling. The 40mm white gold example offered in the Geneva Online Auction takes things to another level, distinguished by a sector dial in multiple shades of grey that gives it a quiet but striking presence on the wrist.
As with every Pythagore, the real story is the movement. Inside is the manual-wind calibre 48, designed in 1943 with a layout based on the Golden Ratio. The bridges are all straight lines and right angles, a design philosophy that connected the mechanics of timekeeping to art and science. This 2001 version elevates that legacy with red-gold galvanisation, Geneva stripes, and hand-finished anglage, alongside the same screwed balance used since the 1940s. The Pythagore remains a watch that flies under the radar, but for anyone who values time-only wristwatches with genuine horological substance and excellent value, it doesn’t get much better.
You can view the complete Phillips Geneva Sessions, Fall 2025, Online Auction catalogue 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 ten years covering the watch industry from every angle. He joined Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo in early 2023 as Senior Editorial Manager, after previous roles at Hodinkee and WatchTime. Originally from Texas, he spent a decade in New York and now calls Geneva home.
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