Last spring, French businessman Patrick Getreide, the owner of OAK, one of the world’s largest and most valuable watch collections, took 168 of his 600 pieces on a world tour, beginning with an exhibit at the British Design Museum in London. To open the show, he threw a party for 700 industry insiders, collectors, and press, who were flown in for the event. That collection is now coming to Christie’s auction house, to be sold in several stages, the first of which is scheduled for November 23 in Hong Kong.
The watches in the OAK collection, which stands for One of a Kind, are either unique or from a small series, some of them new-old-stock. “My criteria for collecting the pieces [amassed over four decades] was that the watches had to be aesthetically beautiful and in perfect condition—like new, even if it’s 70 years old,” Getreide told me in an exclusive interview during the London exhibit, adding that he paid “world record” prices 25 times during the process of acquiring his pieces. The collection has been valued by various people at between $100 million and $300 million.
“In the watch category, this could well be the largest collection that Christie’s has ever handled,” says Alex Bigler, head of watches for Christie’s Asia. “But some of the watches will start below $10,000, and some are in the $50,000 or $100,000 mark. There are pieces at all levels. It’s not just the million-dollar-and-above category.” Of course, there is that: there are plenty of grail pieces in the mix, including a one-of-a-kind Patek Philippe Ref. 1518 “pink on pink,” with a pink dial, pink gold case and pink gold bracelet made by Gay Frères. The 1518 in question is not in Part 1 of the sale, which starts with a few other star models, but will turn up eventually, as all 600+ watches in the collection will eventually hit the block at Christie’s. Watches in part one include: