Meet The Most Expensive Vintage Patek Philippe Watch Ever Sold At Auction

After Paul Newman’s personal Rolex Daytona, the sought-after Patek is also the second most valuable vintage wristwatch ever.

Patek Philippe history was just made in Switzerland, as an extraordinarily rare and important timepiece from the last family-owned Geneva-based watchmaker set a new sales record. A steel Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar Chronograph Ref. 1518 fetched $17.6 million at Phillips’ Decade One watch auction in Geneva, making it the most expensive vintage Patek ever sold at auction.

It also just missed the record for the most expensive vintage wristwatch ever sold at auction for profit, which was set at $17.8 million in 2017 by a Paul Newman-owned Rolex Daytona Ref. 6239. The Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime Ref. 6300A-010 remains the most expensive watch ever sold for profit or charity, having been claimed for $31.2 million in 2019.

The Perpetual Calendar Chronograph Ref. 1518 nearly doubled its pre-auction estimate of $9.9 million as five different bidders battled for just under 10 minutes. The result also far surpassed the $13.7 million the same watch sold for when it was last offered at auction, again by Phillips in 2016.

As the watch whizzes at Hodinkee point out, the reason behind the clamor was entirely warranted. Ref. 1518, which debuted in 1941, was the world’s first serially produced perpetual calendar chronograph wristwatch—a grand complication combining an automatically adjusting calendar and a stopwatch. These grand complications, or watches that include functions aside from telling time, comprise some of the most desirable watches in the world—European Watch Company CEO Joshua Ganjei previously told Maxim that he considers a Patek Philippe grand complication “the ultimate acquisition” for a watch collector.

Interestingly, 1518s in yellow or pink gold are actually more common than the record-setting stainless steel model, of which only three others are known to exist. This one is also believed to be the first of the four made from the non-precious metal, having been manufactured in 1943 and sold in Hungary in February of 1944.

That said, the gold Ref. 1518s are still extremely sought after. A pink-on-pink example produced in 1947 also far exceeded its pre-auction estimate by over seven figures when it sold for $4.4 million at the same Phillips auction. As predicted by SwissWatchExpo in late 2024, it appears that Patek Philippes definitely reached new levels of desirability this year.