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Market Timing
James D. Malcolmson
02/02/2004
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Big Bids
Many of the new collectors in the auction market possess significant means. "Many of the new clients are coming with large spending budgets of over $1 million," says Daryn Schnipper, director of Sotheby’s watch department. "Clients naturally drop out of the market, but for every large bidder that goes away, we seem to be seeing two ready to take his place."
No one in the auction business guarantees
the rapid appreciation of the last few years will continue.
But many point to the growth in the numbers of collectors as a sign that prices will
continue to climb. |
The watch companies themselves represent another breed of large bidder driving auction prices. Many of the top collector brands maintain their own museums. Each insists that its own purchases represent efforts to secure its patrimony rather than attempts to drive up secondary market prices, but the effect is, in the end, the same. "Many of the companies realized that all the historical and cultural value of their brands was tied up in the actual pieces that were produced over time," explains Antiquorum chairman and founder Osvaldo Patrizzi. "They were the best representations of the brands, and slowly the companies began trying at auction to buy back pieces that were missing from their collections. When a manufactory and an important collector start bidding against one another, these pieces can get very expensive indeed. I’ve seen many instances where the collector outbids the watch company."
The dynamic between such powerful bidders probably accounts for most of the truly astounding prices achieved thus far at auction. While spectacular sales like the $4 million Patek Philippe are rare, they nevertheless suggest the growing interest among buyers in the handful of brands, including Patek Philippe, Rolex and Vacheron Constantin, among others, being seriously collected. "What you have is a number of extremely wealthy people who want a particular watch and then hire people to complete the purchase for them," says appraisal expert and author Cooksey Shugart. "I wouldn’t really call it investing, because the price is less important than the watch itself."
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