Antiquorum built its name in Geneva, and for more than a decade its American business ran without a live saleroom. That changed on Sunday, October 18, when the house opened its Important Modern and Vintage Timepieces sale at The Ned NoMad in New York: 157 lots, a single session starting at 11 in the morning, and a room asked to judge whether a New York comeback was more than nostalgia. On the house's official price list, the sale totalled $14,580,812 including premium, and 133 of the 157 lots found buyers. Previews had run at Antiquorum's Hong Kong office on October 7 and 8 and at The Ned on October 16 and 17.
The sale was built to end on F. P. Journe, and Journe duly took the four highest prices. The top lot was number 155, a Centigraphe Souverain in platinum with a salmon dial, dated 2011: estimated at $600,000 to $1,000,000, it hammered at $1,350,000 and sold for $1,670,000 including premium. Behind it came lot 156, the platinum Tourbillon Vertical from the Black Label series, dated 2022, at $1,550,000 against an $800,000 to $1,400,000 estimate, and lot 152, the Vagabondage II in pink gold from a limited edition of 68 pieces, at $1,310,000 against a $500,000 to $800,000 estimate. Lot 157, the platinum Octa Calendrier from 2003 with a gold dial, retrograde date and its full set of box, warranty card and cloths, sold for $800,000, exactly at the top of its $400,000 to $800,000 estimate. Those four watches alone brought in $5,330,000, more than a third of everything the sale recorded.
The closing run, lots 149 to 157, sold through completely, and eight of its nine lots were Journe. A titanium Elegante 48, lot 150, made $425,000 including premium; an Octa Quantieme Perpetuel in pink gold, lot 151, made $250,000; a Quantieme Perpetuel Boutique Edition in platinum with a blue dial, lot 154, made $262,500; and a titanium Automatique Reserve from the lineSport series, lot 149, made $187,500. The one interloper was lot 153, a Richard Mille RM 35-02 Rafael Nadal in Carbon TPT from 2017, which made $337,500, and a ninth Journe, another titanium Elegante 48, sat earlier in the catalogue at lot 131. For a manufacture of Journe's small annual production, placing eight watches at the end of a comeback sale and watching every one of them sell, three of them past a million dollars with premium, is the clearest possible statement of where collector demand currently sits.
The Patek Philippe that preview coverage had circled behaved more soberly. Lot 23, a Nautilus reference 5711/1R-001 in 18-carat pink gold from 2017, carried the detail that changes a Nautilus auction: a brown dial signed Tiffany and Co. at six o'clock, sold with its Tiffany boxes and the certificate of origin. It hammered at $260,000, inside its $200,000 to $400,000 estimate, and sold for $325,000 including premium. That is a strong price, paid for the signature; it is not a runaway one. In a season when the secondary market's recovery has been credited largely to the independents, the room priced the most fashionable modern Patek with a retailer signature as a known quantity, not a trophy to fight over.
Two results cut against the week's easier narratives. The pair of modern Cartier Crash special orders, lots 77 and 78, both sold: $525,000 and $650,000 including premium respectively, which suggests the Crash market will pay for rarity by commission as well as rarity with history. And the grand complications held their level without fireworks: lot 134, a Vacheron Constantin minute repeater with perpetual calendar and moon phases in platinum, reference 30020 from 1994, hammered at $340,000, inside its $200,000 to $400,000 estimate. Richard Mille's RM 011-02 flyback chronograph in NTPT carbon from the Shanghai limited edition, lot 125, hammered at $250,000, inside its $200,000 to $300,000 estimate, while a Rolex Daytona reference 6241 with a tropical Paul Newman dial, lot 137, sold for $387,500 including premium, its hammer of $310,000 inside the $286,000 to $570,000 estimate.
What does a $14.6 million single-session sale prove? Not, on its own, that New York has rejoined Geneva at the centre of the watch auction world; the autumn's biggest consignments are still pointed at Switzerland. It proves something narrower and more useful. A mid-size catalogue of 157 lots, weighted to independents and modern references, can sell through at 85 percent in New York, and when the estimates on the best Journes are set conservatively, the room will run well past them. Antiquorum's return was not a coronation. It was a working saleroom, and the market, this time, showed up for it.
