The Most Exciting Watches Sotheby’s Is Auctioning Off in Fall 2025

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In the world of vintage watches, condition, rarity, and provision dictate value. But one element above all makes collectors really jazzed.

“The concept of provision is something that a collector loves and respects,” said Geoff Hayes, global head of Sotheby’s in New York. Rob Report. “For the most part that’s absent from modern watches. There’s very little story and there’s very little story when you go into a Madison Avenue store and buy a new watch. Vintage watches tell stories that modern watches often don’t, and collectors, as you know, like to tell stories about their watches and their lives.”

On November 9 in Geneva, the house is presenting a timepiece – one of several landmark models on the block this fall. Which blows stories well out of the water. The piece, a Rolex Oyster, once belonged to Mercedes Glatz, the first British woman to swim the English Channel. (“It’s called an oyster because its case is as narrow as a clam,” the ads would later say.) During her iconic crossing in 1927, she wore the piece on a ribbon around her neck.

Estimated to fetch more than 31.3 million, the gold watch – a highlight of Sotheby’s key watches live sale on November 9 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Geneva – was the world’s first practical waterproof wristwatch and, as such, many watch experts have mentioned about general sports care, which has mentioned sports products in general.

But Galette’s Oyster isn’t the only memorable timepiece that’s up for auction this season. On December 8 in New York, during its flagship Important and Fine Watches auction – the first watch sale in the auction’s new home in the historic Brewer Building – Sotheby’s Olmsted is offering a collection of complications.for , for , for , . A historical grouping of more than 80 timepieces by Robert M. Olmsted, a New York City-based financial advisor and Princeton grad whose alumni highlight his passion for timepieces. (“He was also fascinated by the mechanical intricacies of clocks and collected pocket watches and clocks throughout his life. Monday evenings were busy when he wound every timepiece in the apartment. Daylight saving time was a particular challenge.”)

The undisputed highlights of Olmsted’s collection are two previously unknown and possibly unique Patek Philippe pocket watches. According to Sotheby’s, each is equipped with a double movement, which is not publicly known to exist in any watch. Boasting two sets of hour and minute hands and seconds hands, the watches differ in their complications: one features a minute repeater, while the other combines a minute repeater with a split-second date.

Sotheby’s Chairman Emeritus of the International Watch Division, Darren Schinper, says that, beyond the overall rarity of the collection, “the most important thing is that it’s absolutely fresh to the market and in truly stunning condition.”

In addition to the Rolex Oyster and Olmsted’s collection of high-end timepieces based on Galette’s provision, Sotheby’s has at least one more up its sleeve on Dec. 5 in Abu Dhabi, for $100, offering 2,000, according to Peppet.

The sale features the first complete Star Caliber 2000 set to appear publicly. A set of five produced by the Geneva watchmaker, four in mixed metals and one in platinum with different engravings, the set includes watches in each precious metal: white gold, yellow gold, rose gold and platinum.

Introduced in 2000 to mark the new millennium, the double-sided pocket watch contains 1,118 parts and has 21 complications, six of which are patented inventions, including sunrise and sunset time, rapid calendar correction, sky and moon charts, and a mechanism that has a catch that allows it to play a fiddle.

“What’s interesting is that the focus was not so much on complications but on advances in musical beauty and astronomical poetry,” said John Reardon, founder of a sales and education platform specializing in vintage Patek Philippe timepieces. “He was literally focused on the ability to master the art of creating sound and making the stars appear in a way that had never been heard or seen before. It’s all about monumental mechanical supremacy that no other maker at the time could have dared.”

It is, in other words, a timepiece worthy of the horological elite. “The Star Caliber is one of the most important watches in the world,” says Sam Hynes, global chairman of Sotheby’s Watches. “It was inspired by the world’s most important watches from Patek: the Henri Graves Supercomplication, the Picard Supercomplication, the Caliber 89. It is a milestone in the history of watchmaking.”