The Most Expensive Watch Ever: Inside the Record-Obliterating $31 Million Patek Philippe

The motion made the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime the most expensive watch ever sold by a wide margin. It is a stunning result. Unlike the Paul Newman, this watch was not vintage nor powered by incredible provenance. The Grandmaster Chime is a modern watch made specifically for the Only Watch auction, which donates 100 percent of its proceeds to Duchenne muscular dystrophy research.

The watch is the most advanced ever produced by Patek Philippe, which is already renowned for making the world’s most advanced wristwatches. The watch comes with 20 complications—think of them like apps for a watch—including minute repeaters that chime out the time, a perpetual calendar, second time zone, moonphase indicator, and dials for the day and date. Plus, the watch is, astoundingly, reversible. On one side, a sleek black dial and on the other a salmon-colored face that’s etched with the words: “The Only One”. “[Patek Philippe president Thierry Stern] told me he had written the mention of ‘The Only One’ to emphasize its uniqueness and that he was sorry he didn’t have the idea before,” Pettavino writes over email. It allegedly took Patek Philippe 10,000 man hours in total to make the watch. “Since the beginning [of Only Watch’s paternship with Patek Philippe,] in 2005 their idea was to go crescendo,” says Pettavino. “And this time, super crescendo!”

Courtesy of Patek Philippe

Courtesy of Patek Philippe

While the watch is exceptionally complicated, marking the watch as “The Only One” is likely what armed this watch with the sledgehammer to smash previous records. There are many beautiful Patek Philippes collectors can buy, and many highly technical ones, but what makes this particular reference a $31 million watch is its one-of-oneness. “Obviously it's the exclusivity of it,” says Wind.

Only Watch isn’t the only winner from this auction, either. Leading up to the auction, people whispered that Patek Philippe was in it for glory. “All the conversations before were that Patek Philippe really wanted to overtake Rolex as the most expensive wristwatch ever sold,” says Wind. “It was very discomforting to them to not have the record for most expensive wristwatch. So from day one they set out to make the watch that could surpass it.”

Watch collecting largely will benefit from this ceiling-raising piece, too. The watch community has long wondered why watches weren’t considered as valuable as cars or pieces of art. While this result alone won’t put watches in the same tier as those collectibles, it’s certainly a step in the right direction. “It’s good to see the goalposts getting expanded for the field of watch collecting,” Wind says.

In the days leading up to the auction, Wind says opinions were split on the watch’s worth. “A friend of mine who is pretty well tied in with the Asian collectors said that there was a lot of talk it would surpass the [Henry] Graves, which several days ago people were saying would be so outlandish.” Wind laughs at the memory now. Days later, a $31 million wristwatch still elicits that reaction: laughter, or disbelief. “I did not expect this level to be envisageable,” Pettavino says. “It’s so strong I still have difficulties to integrate this amount. Above the Everest and the sky. Somewhere in space…”

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