Rolex Daytona auction: a serious business

[cornerstore]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/wa...-business.html

Christie's sale shows just how far the market in classic watches has come in recent years

James Gurney
By James Gurney

October 31, 2013 14:55

Christie’s is celebrating by choosing 50 “emblematic” examples of the Rolex Cosmograph Daytona



Watchmaking had a terrible 1970s and an even worse start to the 1980s. The rebirth that lead to today’s golden era (hardly hyperbole in comparison to the near disappearance of the Swiss industry in the dark days) had a number of causes, but one of the most important was the development of a sophisticated and knowledgeable collectors’ market. Spearheaded by the specialist auction house, Antiquorum, a demand emerged for classic watches that simply did not exist before.

Not for nothing is their 1989 thematic Art of Patek Philippe sale regarded as the starting point for a period of sustained growth in demand for watches that continues into the present day. The upcoming Christie’s sale celebrating the half-century of the Rolex Cosmograph “Daytona” is remarkable not just for the watches being offered, but as a marker for how far the auction market has developed in the last quarter-century – it would have been tough to win support for such a sale even a decade ago.

Today, the auction market for watches is serious business for the likes of Antiquorum, Bonhams, Christie’s and Sotheby’s – Christie’s annual watch sales topped $100million for the first time in 2011. While the big sales cluster around New York, Geneva and Hong Kong, and are dominated by high-value watches from the likes of Rolex, Patek and Vacheron Constantin, the development of internet auction tools has brought in a cloud of smaller auction players able to focus on different watch collecting niches. In the process, auctioneers, dealers and collectors are benefitting from more reliable and stable valuations for frequently appearing watches.

In the Rolex Daytona "Lesson One" sale, Christie’s celebrates by choosing 50 “emblematic” examples of the watch that collectors of every stripe seek out more than any other, save perhaps the Rolex Submariner. Christie’s head of watches, Aurel Bacs, worked with Pucci Papaleo, a leading authority in the field (his 600-page book on the Daytona weighs in at 12kg) to select from a pool of several hundred contenders, an illustration of just how much detail matters in watch collecting. Bacs apparently had to use all his considerable persuasive abilities to extract key watches from leading collectors.

First on the list is, almost inevitably, an example of the original 1963 Cosmograph made for the US market before the name “Daytona” was even used, while highlights include the ultra-rare 1975 edition made for the Fuerza Aerea del Perù.

Estimates for the watches range from $10,000 to $300,000 and among the other highlights are both some of the rarest Daytona models ever produced and a number once worn by the likes of Jean-Paul Belmondo, Eric Clapton and David Brabham. The sale is a fitting sign-off for Bacs, who is leaving Christie’s after ten years in charge of the watch department.

The Rolex Daytona "Lesson One" sale is at Christie's, Geneva on 10 November 2013

[dardeca]

Would be interesting to see the 50 they've selected.

[cornerstore]

Originally Posted by dardeca

Would be interesting to see the 50 they've selected.

Here are a few.

http://rolexpassionreport.com/13551/...one-1963-2013/

[Nycturbovr6]

Very nice thanks for sharing