The Most Expensive Watches Sold at Auction

In our last article looking at record-beating watch prices, we listed the most expensive of the current models you could, hypothetically, buy at

Coming out on top was Patek Philippe’s glorious Grandmaster Chime ref. 6300/400G, yours today for the knockdown sum of just $3.85m or so.

That is a fairly serious amount of anyone’s money. In this post, however, we are going to go from the merely exorbitant to the outright lunatic by exploring the most expensive watches ever sold at auction.

Unlike with new timepieces, which generally earn their price tags through a combination of exclusivity, mechanical complexity and standard of craftsmanship, those achieving the most stratospheric levels at auction also have the added enticements of a usually intriguing history and, more often than not, links to celebrity. And it is those last two which can elevate said models to previously undreamt-of heights.

Below we list the top five most expensive auction sales ever—but I’m going to restrict myself to wristwatches only. That means there’s no place for Patek’s $24m Henry Graves Supercomplication. Fear not, however. The King of Watchmakers is still very much in evidence.

Patek Philippe Gobbi Milan ‘Heures Universelles’ ref. 2523
Price: $8.967

Told you.

If you made a list of all the various elements and qualities any watch needed in order to get collectors’ hearts racing and wallets opening, the Patek ref. 2523 ticks every box.

Rare? Check. Only seven pieces were made in pink gold with blue enamel centers, of which only two are thought to still survive.

Impressive complications? Check. The Worldtimer features diurnal and nocturnal hours, plus a revolving ring which can display the time in 40 major cities around the globe.

Flawless condition? Check. Especially for a watch stemming from 1953.

Unique Feature? Check. This is thought to be the only example double-signed by Patek and their prestigious Milan retailer, Gobbi.

Illustrious manufacturer? Duh.

The ref. 2523 is a handsome, understated and technically impressive watch, built during the brand’s golden age and an absolute one-off. Add all that together, and you can see why it smashed the Asian auction record when Christie’s put it up for sale in Hong Kong in 2019.

Patek Philippe Prince Mohammed Tewfik A. Toussoun ref. 1518 with French Calendar
Price: $9.smallm

A prime example of how an eminent former owner can inflate auction prices, this ref. 1518 from Patek was once the property of Prince Tewfik Adil Toussoun of Egypt, direct descendant of the founder of modern Egypt, Muhammad Ali (not that one) and first cousin of King Farouk I.

Fewer than 300 ref. 1518s were ever made and were the first perpetual calendar chronographs Patek put into serial production. Of those, only 14 had the so-called ‘pink on pink’ configuration, with a salmon dial on a rose gold case.

Launched at the 1941 Basel Fair, the Prince reportedly bought the watch in 1951, wore it only lightly and mostly kept it stored in a safety deposit box for the next seven decades. As such, one of the rarest, most desirable watches of all time went under Sotheby’s New York hammer in December 2021 in near-perfect condition, where it reached a staggering $9.57m.

Patek Philippe ref. 1518 in Stainless Steel.
Price: $11.1m

Proof that scarcity is everything in the watch collecting world.

Here we have another ref. 1518 from Patek which, when it sold for $11.1m in 2016, briefly held the record for most expensive watch of all time.

It had all the same attributes as the pink gold reference owned by Prince Tewfik—35mm, perpetual calendar chronograph, moonphase indicator, etc.

Except this time, the case was in stainless steel, one of only four made. Of those four, two went missing during WWII, only to turn up again in Hungary in the early 2000s.

Known as the Rolls Royce of watches, the design would go on to influence Patek models for generations to come, as well as continue the marque’s domination of the auction scene.

Rolex Daytona Paul Newman ref. 6239
Price: $17.7m

I’m sure you all remember this one!

The only non-Patek on the list and the most expensive Rolex ever sold at auction, the Daytona ref. 6239 once owned by the legendary Paul Newman is a barrage of paradoxes.

To begin with, the first generation Daytonas were highly unpopular watches, relatively speaking. Held back by the perceived obsolescence of their hand-wound movements, they lingered on dealers’ shelves for years as customers preferred the convenience of automatic calibers.

Secondly, the ‘Exotic’ dials made by Singer proved to be unappealing as well. The tricolor Panda face, with its white background, black totalizers and red accents, were shunned to such a degree that roughly only one in 20 Daytonas leaving the line were outfitted with them. The irony that these are now known colloquially as the Paul Newman dials goes to show the unpredictability of horology and life in general.

But let’s make no mistake; this particular ref. 6239 reached its incredible sum purely because of Newman, one of the most iconic and beloved actors of his or any generation. What’s more, the touching love story behind it, and how it came to be in the seller’s possession, all contribute to the legend.

Bought in 1968 by Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward to celebrate the budding racing driver’s first competitive meet, she had the words ‘Drive Carefully Me’ engraved on the case back.

Newman wore the watch religiously for 20-years and was photographed with it many times at races, before off-handedly giving it to the boyfriend of his daughter, Nell, simply because he didn’t have a watch of his own.

That young man, James Cox, kept it until 2017 when he put it up for auction, with the proceeds going to the Nell Newman Foundation, a charity set up to continue her father’s extensive philanthropic works.

At that point, interest in the watch was near pandemonium, reflected in the near $18m selling price following 12-minutes of fevered bidding.

The buyer remains a mystery, with some speculating that Rolex themselves procured it. However, that was disproved when the watch was put on display at LA’s Academy Museum of Motion Pictures recently, where it was described as having been loaned from a private collector.

Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime ref. 6300A-010
Price: $31.19m

If you read our previous article, I may have rather given the game away on what was going to head up this list.

The gemstone-flooded Grandmaster Chime ref. 6300/400G is currently the most expensive watch you can buy at retail, a white gold 49.4mm masterpiece set with an incredible 409 diamonds.

Here, however, exclusivity trumps bling, with the unembellished ref. 6300A-010 going for a Newman-humbling $31.19m.

Why did it fetch so much? Well, apart from the technical virtuosity—the in-house movement drives 20 complications including five chiming modes, two of which are world firsts (an acoustic alarm that sounds at a predetermined time and a date repeater that strikes on demand), along with the ingenious reversible case so you can choose between two different dials, one salmon pink and the other black, this is the only Grandmaster Chime made in stainless steel.

It was created especially for the ‘Only Watch’ auction in Geneva in 2019, a charity event to raise funds for Muscular Dystrophy research. And just to let the lucky buyer know they have something utterly unique on their hands, Patek inscribed the watch with ‘The Only One’ on the pink side of the dial.

We thought in 2017 that Rolex’s Paul Newman was going to rule the roost for a long time to come. In reality, the watch’s reign as the most expensive of all time lasted less than two years.

We can only wait and see what extraordinary creation is going to unseat Patek’s Grandmaster.

Featured Photo: Cheuvkam Luaoi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, Mixed by Oriol Mendivil.