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When that complicated Calatrava sold for more than a million dollars in 1996, it wasn’t the first time we’d seen it. Back in 1981, it sold for the similarly astronomical price of CHF 185,000 (about $600,000 today). This was when your average 1:1 fake Patek Philippe ref. 2499 might have had an estimate of $15,000 to $20,000, so this sale is often credited with catapulting vintage replica wristwatches online into serious collectibles, more than the nerdy niche of historical clocks and pocket watches that it’d been until then.
Through the turn of the century, a number of other complicated vintage aaa Patek Philippe replica watches broke through the million-dollar mark. That complicated Calatrava was followed months later by a one-of-a-kind steel ref. 1591 waterproof (!) perpetual calendar (sold at Sotheby’s for CHF 1.1 million in 1996), and then some 2499s.
Another inflection point seemed to come in 2002 when an intense bidding war resulted in a unique platinum luxury replica Patek Philippe ref. 1415 World Timer selling for CHF 6.6 million, smashing the world record result for a wristwatch at auction. The sale was won by Lee Kun-hee, the former chairman of Samsung and a prolific collector of pretty much everything. Lee died in 2020, and in 2021 the family began selling off much of his collection to help offset a 60 percent inheritance tax. Among the first items to be offered at auction was the platinum 1415 he’d held since winning it in 2002, and its subsequent sale provides our first lesson on the differences between collecting absurdly expensive super clone watches for sale in 2022 compared to 2002: It sold for about $1.87 million last year, around a third of its price 20 years earlier. Why did it sell for so much less?
Swiss collector Edmond Saran wrote a great piece detailing the history of this 1415 when it came up for auction last year. He writes that “back in 2002, this type of watch, a small 31mm luxury replica Patek Philippe, unique and important in history (it is after all among the very first world timers made) was more highly valued by collectors than today. It was a watch for collectors who valued the art of watchmaking and design,” in addition to being unique.
“The size of the high quality replica Patek Philippe UK didn’t matter so much as it does today,” Saran quotes Aurel Bacs, the head auctioneer and senior consultant at Phillips, as saying, adding that “back then you had collectors who had the deep pockets but also the knowledge to buy pieces like the 1415.”
“The price that Christie’s got was a fraction of the watch’s real value,” long-time mega dealer Davide Parmegiani told Revolution after the sale. “To be honest, I’m very sad to see how the market has changed in the last 25 years. I’m happy that it’s grown so much and now there are many Swiss made fake watches that are worth many millions. But with this auction, I realized that nobody has understood the true rarity of the platinum Patek Philippe ref.1415 replica for sale.” I’m not as pessimistic on the state of collecting as Parmegiani, but more on that later. He called the sale the “best deal of 2021” in vintage watches.
Sure, the Swiss movement fake Patek Philippe 1415 is still a million-dollar watch, but it’ll never be anything close to “the most expensive wristwatch” like it was in 2002. It’s too small, too niche, and modern collectors just don’t care as much about its historical importance as collectors did two decades ago.
