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| Passion Investments: Watches |
The Knack of Time
Jill Newman
08/01/2005
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“From around 1900
until the Great Depression in 1929, Americans were the richest people in the
world,” Arnaud Tellier, curator of Patek Philippe’s watch museum in Geneva,
says, “and they competed among each other to build the largest buildings and
amass the largest collections of antiques, books and watches.” He estimates
between 60 and 70 percent of all Swiss watches made in the early 20th century
were acquired by Americans. Yet the Swiss watchmakers’ dependency on American
money turned out to be the demise of nearly half of the watch houses, which went
bankrupt during the Great Depression, Tellier adds.
 | | THE FRONT and back of the Patek Philippe watch that was commissioned by
Henry Graves Jr. in 1925. The watch, which boasts 24 complications, went
for $11 million at a 1999 auction at Sotheby’s. |
With a much wider
audience for luxury timepieces today, watchmakers are no longer financially
dependent on patrons such as Graves, whose extravagant request took eight years
to complete. Furthermore, with the growing demand for complicated watches,
houses such as Breguet and Patek Philippe can no longer forgo their day-to-day
business by devoting their best watchmakers to elaborate special commissions.
“There are probably 100 collectors today who would be equivalent to Graves
or Packard,” Hank Edelman, president of Patek Philippe USA, says. “Our problem
is that if we make just one model of a particular watch, how do we decide whom
to sell it to?” Instead, the watchmaker continues to create innovative new watch
technology in limited series.
Indeed, this dilemma is complicated by the
presence of so-called collectors who acquire limited series timepieces simply to
turn them around at auction for a profit. This is exactly what happened a few
years ago when one of Patek Philippe’s 10 Sky Moon Tourbillons was sold to a
collector and months later appeared on the cover of a Sotheby’s catalog with an
estimated value of nearly double its $750,000 price.
Packard and Graves
bought their watches to cherish, not with resale in mind. Patek Philippe’s
owner, Philippe Stern, was furious to learn that one of his company’s
masterworks was flipped for a quick profit. Now he is so suspicious of clients
who want his Sky Moon Tourbillon that he has been known to personally interview
prospective buyers to ensure they are true collectors, not profiteers. Only a
few models of this incredibly complicated watch can be manufactured each year,
and the waiting list is several years long.
Altered States
Another commission that changed the course of watch
technology occurred in 1943, when Cartier created the iconic Pasha for the pasha
of Marrakech. He requested a waterproof wristwatch that he could wear in the
pool and bath, an appeal that inspired Cartier’s first water-resistant watch,
deemed a great technical accomplishment for the era. “The pasha not only
influenced Cartier, but the entire watch industry,” Stanislas de Quercize,
Cartier North America president and CEO, says. “At the time, only explorers and
soldiers wore water-resistant watches.”
Some of Cartier’s most recognizable
watches were created at the request of a collector or a high-profile friend of
Louis Cartier. One of the best examples, de Quercize recalls, is the Santos,
created in 1904 for famed Brazilian aviator Alberto Santos Dumont, a close
friend of Cartier, who requested a watch that would allow him to check his
flight times while operating his aircraft. “Louis Cartier designed a watch that
he could wear on his wrist, and it became the world’s first modern wristwatch,”
de Quercize explains. It remains one of Cartier’s most celebrated
models.
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