Sylvester Stallone’s Patek Philippe had horophiles fighting like Rocky Balboa at Sotheby’s in New York on Wednesday.
The Grandmaster Chime (Ref. 6300G-010) sparked a fierce bidding battle between five bidders at Sotheby’s Important Watches auction in New York before it sold to a private Asian collector for $5.4 million. That is the highest price achieved for any modern watch sold at Sotheby’s and makes Sly’s Patek the third most expensive timepiece sold in the auction house’s history.
The sale included 11 of the legendary actor’s prized timepieces from watchmakers such as Rolex, Audemars Piguet, and Piaget. The entire collection sold for a collective $6.7 million, eclipsing the pre-sale high estimate of $6 million. All but one lot shattered the initial high estimates, with the Grandmaster Chime hammering down for $400,000 more than originally expected.
Stallone’s Ref. 6300 is housed in the original plastic seal, certainly upping the value of the watch.
Sotheby’s
The sale attracted more than 200 bidders, with over 100 in the buzzing saleroom and the rest online. (The buyers will no doubt appreciate Sotheby’s newly reduced premium, which is the lowest across the international auction houses: 20% up to $5 million with reductions beyond, as of this writing.) Six of the 11 timepieces sold to online bidders, but not that multi-million dollar Patek.
The Grandmaster Chime was originally released as a limited edition in 2014 to commemorate Patek’s 175th anniversary, after which it was added to the regular catalog as Reference 6300 in 2016. The model is considered the most complicated in the Patek portfolio, with 20 complications including a Grand Sonnerie. The development, production, and assembly of just one example totals an astounding 100,000 hours.
The watch…