Editors' Picks The Weird & Wonderful Watches We Couldn't Take Our Eyes Off At The Geneva Auctions

By the way, if you want to scroll through them yourself, here are the catalogs for the live auctions from Friday through Monday: Christie's Rare Watches, Phillips Geneva Watch Auction, Sotheby's Important Watches, and Antiquorum.

Here's a little trick to attending an auction preview. When you show up, request to view a bit of a rank-and-file watch. Not a top lot, but in the high-flying world of watch auctions, this can be anything under, say, $100,000 (but nothing too delicate). Slip on said watch, and then proceed to "forget" it's even on your wrist for the next hour or so, and quietly enjoy wearing said watch you might never have the privilege of buying.

For me, I always choose a Patek 3970 perpetual calendar chronograph if there's one in the catalog like there is at Christie's this week. It's a complicated watch and perhaps Patek's last great perpetual calendar chronograph reference, but at 36mm and with its long, stepped lugs that still feel vintage-y, it's small and robust. Even better, this particular one at Christie's is a second series in white gold – it's actually thought that white gold is rarer than platinum (about 80 of 650 second-series examples are in white gold). For clients, the thinking was something like, "well, if I'm already getting a Patek perpetual calendar chronograph in a precious white metal, I might as well go all out and get platinum." So, there just ended up being fewer white gold examples, even compared to platinum.

Even better, I cosplayed as a rich-guy collector who already has it all, picking up and analyzing the even rarer white gold Patek 3974 minute repeater at Christie's while I still had the 3970 on my wrist. Imagine strolling into a preview, 3970 on wrist, and saying "Yeah, sure, I always love timing things and knowing whether or not it's a leap year, but it's just a damn shame this thing doesn't chime!" Proceed to buy 3974. It's a perpetual calendar, only about 160 examples were made from 1989 through 2013, and probably less than 12 in white gold (again, white gold rarer than platinum; see above).

Sure, Patek still makes complicated watches like this today, but are any as elegant as this? It wears similar to the 3970, but because this is an earlier 3974, it has an extremely important detail: it was made by master casemaker Jean-Pierre Hagmann, and you can clearly see his hallmark on a back lug.

There's also a rare "Saatchi" 3970 at Phillips, produced in 2015 to celebrate the brand's Grand Exhibition at Saatchi Gallery in London. These Saatchi pieces were all super-limited production runs (think five or less) of previously discontinued references and have been getting a lot of attention the last couple of years; this 3970P with a Breguet "12" is one of the best and could surpass CHF 1 million.

If complicated Pateks in white gold are your thing, here's the 3974 and 3970EG at Christie's Rare Watches.

–Tony Traina

While your eyes might glaze over reading about a pocket watch, bear with me. First, this is technically a clock watch – a grande et petite sonnerie, something important enough for a mention in any auction week, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. To steal a line from Indiana Jones, "that belongs in a museum." This is Abraham-Louis Breguet's serial number no. 1950, made by his own hand and delivered in May of 1808 to the Ottoman Ambassador Galib Effendi, with Turkish numerals on the dial. Watches actually made by Breguet are particularly rare, with many more "apocryphal" Breguets showing up at auction.

The watch is relatively small when you consider the movement features five gongs (which I was lucky enough to hear and are remarkably clear for the watch's age). But even if you put aside the fascinating dual provenance or technicality, the case is pair-cased cabriolet by case maker Tavernier, where the inner case can be reversed to hide the dial and make one fully enameled piece of art. It is a masterwork of Turkish enameling, one of the few places where Breguet allowed himself to decorate his cases intricately. Most of these watches are in museums, so for anyone looking to add something like this to their collection, the price will be no object.

See Lot 1347 in Sotheby's Centuries of Time Auction (estimate CHF 500,000 to 1,500,000) here.

–Mark Kauzlarich

One thing was clear inside the Phillips tent at La Réserve – quality vintage had everyone talking. This is somewhat true of most auction previews. While modern watches have taken over a larger portion of the pie over the last dozen auction seasons, vintage is what you need to hold in your hand to "get" – vintage Patek especially. The best vintage Patek in the sale is lot 22, a reference 1579 chronograph manufactured in 1953, which, upon reading this sentence or the lot title might not jump off the page.

As the Phillips team puts it, this watch is "most probably unique" being the only combination known of the 1579 case shape with "spider lugs" and enameled Breguet numerals. There were about 500 examples of this reference manufactured from 1943 to 1964 with two different dial types delineating the first series 1579s from second series examples. None of these dials look anything like this one and the Patek extract confirmed the dial Phillips is offering here is original to the watch.

Almost definitely unique or not, lot 22 at GWAXVII has a palpable presence. The setup in the showroom is fairly simple, with showcases surrounding viewing tables. Browsing through the cases, lot 22 was almost never there, always being requested by one of the dozen viewing tables for a closer look. The case condition is sharp with distinct lines on the faceted lugs and an overall patina that presents as warm. This type of warmth only comes from unmolested vintage, bordering on pink gold in photos yet distinctly yellow in natural light. The dial is better, of course. This watch is the best example of Patek's hard enamel finishing from this period I have ever seen – it is a clinic. The proud Breguet numerals, oversized sub-registers, and detailed outer chronograph scale combine to create the ideal stage for Patek to grandstand.

See Patek ref. 1579 at Phillips, with an estimate of CHF 300,000 to 600,000.

– Rich Fordon

I would've loved to have a Cartier pick, but it's a weak Geneva season for good Cartiers. Most of the stuff for sale is modern or near-modern, which, while it can be rare in number, doesn't necessarily mean it's interesting (it's exhausting to see the third modern Pebble appear at auction at Phillips, just months after its release at an already-punchy $40,000). The best auction Cartier of the year was the London Oval Maxi that sold at Monaco for more than $200,000 in April. There's a platinum Tank Cintrée at Christie's that has some folks excited, but it just didn't do it for me in person. The dial was restored by Cartier in 1999 according to Christie's, and to me, the clean, modern look of the newer dial just doesn't fit a watch from 1926. By the way, it's not like these old Cartiers were super waterproof – most vintage Cartier dials probably are restored. Still, this Cintrée comes from the family of the original owner, and vintage Cintrées are very rare, and rarer still in platinum so it might do well.

Not every season needs to be full of hits for a brand. And with so much heat behind Cartier the last few years, perhaps it's not such a bad thing for it to take a breather.

– T.T.