We’re back for another auction chinwag. This time we kept our picks (mostly) vintage, which makes sense when you consider high quality replica watches who was part of this spirited debate. Tony Traina, vintage watch head and scholar; Rich Fordon, resident vintage specialist and client advisor (who will be attending the auctions to bid in person this weekend); and Malaika Crawford who is here for any sort of staff battle and partial to a little vintage design also.
We discuss this week’s Geneva auctions at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips, as well as Antiquorum for an informal chat about trends, some of our favorite lots, and Malaika throwing in a high quality replica watches Richard Mille-shaped surprise to try and get some less conservative takes.
Tony Traina: Okay. This is my favorite watch from the week. A pre-brand Franck Muller, as they call it. It just says “Franck” on the dial. It’s from before he officially started his Frank Muller brand. It’s a perpetual calendar and minute repeater – honestly, at a glance, it looks more like a Breguet. It’s got a case by Jean-Pierre Hagmann, the master casemaker who used to make cases for Patek, Blancpain, and others, and now makes them for Rexhep. Sotheby’s says they even confirmed with Hagmann that this is the only case like this he ever made for Franck (hence the “No. 1” on the caseback).
I love this high quality replica watches. There are two up for sale this weekend, being the first two in a couple of years at auction [the other is at Sotehby’s]. I am really interested by this reference in general because they have been the same price for like 30 years. One of these sold for 14,000 euros in 2000 at Antiquorum. And here we’re at essentially the same pricing, although this one might go a little higher because of the double-signed dial. The pricing probably means the same people have been buying them, or the same segment of collectors have been buying them forever and nobody else really cares. I’m probably one of the people that care. The sizing is really good. I think people consider these watches to be a little too small but if you two remember the Boucheron Carrée that I owned for a little while, this is slightly larger. high quality replica watches
First of all I think Antiquorum, top to bottom, has the best sale in Geneva. But because it’s like 600 lots there are bound to be a few steals. I talked about the Patek 605 World Time pocket watch on our podcast preview as my favorite big-money headliner from this season. For me, this might be one of those steals – it’s the watch I picked up right away when I walked into the Antiquorum office and hardly took off for the next hour. So many of these are chewed up and have restored dials, but this one’s got all its original charm and comes from the family of the original owner. It’s time to bring back the Bubbleback!