I spent a few days zipping around New York to attend the previews, auctions, and catch a little gossip from dealers, specialists, and collectors. This time around, more than $50 million of watches sold at Sothebyâs ($16.6 million), Phillips ($30.3 million), and Christieâs ($10.9 million), with another few million still to close under their online hammers.
The vibe is notably more subdued and cautious than in 2021 when I attended my first big auction during those frothy, pandemic-adjacent days. You remember when a Charizard card cost as much as a Rolex Daytona and a Daytona was as much as a Ford Bronco, and a Ford Broncoâwell, you get it.
At those sales in 2021, a modern Patek Philippe Nautilus sold for $6.5 million simply because it had a bright Tiffany & Co. blue dialâa watch that sells for âjustâ a million bucks nowadays, give or take. I vividly remember rapper Rich the Kid posing for photos next to the robin egg blue Nautilus. Multiple kids from the house Arnault attended that week.
This weekend, the closest thing to a celebrity sighting was Bev Weston, who could be spotted sitting quietly in the corner of Sothebyâs preview. While hardly a household name, Weston was responsible for perhaps the biggest lot of the week, or at least the most famous one: the latest Steve McQueen Heuer Monaco that the actor wore on set while filming Le Mans.
Itâs the type of celebrity co-sign a brand would pay millions for todayâin the case of TAG Heuer (and its parent LVMH), it is spending $150 million a year to sponsor Formula 1. But in the 1970s, Heuer and auto racing were sine qua non.
Weston worked as a mechanic on the set of Le Mans. After filming wrapped, he wandered into the prop departmentâs tent to buy some used overalls. While there, he also spotted a blue Monaco on a metal bracelet. The price? $40. Weston added it to his haul and wore the Monaco over the next few decades before selling it in 2010.
In all, six Heuer Monacos were used as props in the filming of Le Mans; it might be the most important Heuer, pulling together racing, chronographs, and one of Hollywoodâs leading men into one watch. Before last weekend, the most recent of the âMcQueen Monacosâ to appear publicly sold at Phillips for $2.2 million in 2020.
