The piece from the Swiss company's 1518 series sold on Saturday for 11,002,000 Swiss francs following a 13-minute bidding war, according to a statement from Phillips, a leading watch auction firm based in London.
When Patek Philippe introduced the 1518 series in 1941, they were the first-ever perpetual calendar chronographs, meaning they were the first timepieces that had both a stop-watch function as well as a calendar designed to keep track of dates for centuries, with leap years factored in.
The piece sold on Saturday was made in 1943, Phillips said, calling its sale price “a new world record for any wristwatch at auction”, which more than tripped the pre-sale estimate.
Neither the buyer, nor the seller were identified.
A total of 177 watches were sold over weekend in the Swiss city, fetching $27.5 million collectively.
LUXURY
Watch sells for record $11m at Geneva auction
A stainless steel Patek Philippe watch has sold for a record $11 million (10.2 million euros) in Geneva, an auction house said on Monday.
Published: 15 November 2016 08:40 CET
File photo: Michael Buholzer/AFP
DIAMOND
Rare pink diamond to go under hammer in Geneva
An extremely rare pink diamond will be auctioned in Geneva on November 11 by Sotheby's, which says it is worth between $23 and $38 million.
Published: 8 November 2020 12:54 CET
A model poses with the “The Spirit of the Rose” diamond during a press preview on Friday. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP
Named “The Spirit of the Rose” after a famous Russian ballet, the 14.83-carat diamond mined in Russia is the biggest ever to go under the hammer in its category — “fancy vivid purple-pink”.
The occurrence of pink diamonds in nature is extremely rare in any size,” Gary Schuler, head of Sotheby's jewellery division, said in a statement. “Only one per cent of all pink diamonds are larger than 10-carats.”
Speaking to AFP, Benoit Repellin, head of fine jewellery auctions at Sotheby's Geneva, said the oval-shaped diamond was “completely pure.”
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The rough diamond was unearthed by Russia's Alrosa — one of the world's leading diamond producers — in the Republic of Sakha in the northeast of the country in July 2017.
Repellin said it took a painstaking year for cutting masters to turn the diamond into its polished form.
Sotheby's said the world auction record for a diamond and any gemstone or jewel was the “CTF Pink Star”, a 59.60-carat oval pink diamond that sold for $71.2 million in Hong Kong in 2017.
According to Repellin, five out of the 10 most valuable diamonds ever sold at auction were pink.
The sale of this gem coincides with the closure of the world's largest pink diamond mine in Australia after it exhausted its reserves of the precious stones.
The Argyle mine, in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, churned out more than 90 percent of the world's pink diamonds.
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