A 140-year-old Patek Philippe pocket watch, custom-ordered by Tata Group founder Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, will be auctioned in Hong Kong on November 28 for an estimated $10,000-$20,000.
The 18k pink gold timepiece was gifted by the father of the Indian industry to English architect James Morris in 1890 in recognition of his work on the Tata family mansion, Esplanade House, in Mumbai. Encased in a leather presentation box decorated with the architect’s monogram, the engraving on the back of the watch carries a dedication to Morris, in recognition of his “professional skill and of the care and attention devoted by him”.
The watch was manufactured in 1876.
Custom-ordered timepieces could only be imported to colonial India from Switzerland via England,and delivery would take several months. It is said that near the end of his life, Jamsetji bequeathed a Patek Philippe watch to his cousin Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (J.R.D.’s father) with the advice: “Make Tatas grow, or at least not lose what had been gained.”
The watch will be auctioned by Phillips, the Hong Kong-based global platform for buying and selling 20th and 21st century art and design. In a chat with The Hindu , Thomas Perazzi the Head of Watches, Asia, at Phillips talks about the timepiece and the process to auction it.
Mr. Perazzi is responsible for securing and selling consignments, and developing a network of top collectors for fine watches in Asia. He was formerly the Geneva-based head of the European watch department at Christie’s, and has served as the deputy director for the European market at Sotheby’s, and as head of the Italian watch department for Antiquorum.
The Patek Philippe timepiece to be auctioned is a ‘repeating chronograph hunter case presentation watch’. What does this mean, horologically?
A repeater is a complication in a mechanical watch that chimes the time on demand by activating a slide-piece. [Its] origins can be traced back to the end of the 17th century. The first examples of striking watches were ‘dumb’ repeaters, which struck the time on the inside of the case, producing a muffled sound [that] could only be detected if the watch was held in the hand. Over time, a bell, usually attached to the inner back cover of the watch, was introduced for the hammer to strike, and the first chiming watches were born. Evolution brought forth watches that not only chimed the hours, but also the quarters, half-quarters and five-minute repeaters, like the present one. The first examples of five-minute repeaters appeared in the mid-18th century.
At the end of the 18th century, A.L. Breguet designed a mechanism that would strike the hours, quarters and minutes, replacing the bell by a set of coiled wire gongs, thereby reducing space and providing different tones. Over 100 unique components must be combined to create a five-minute repeating mechanism, with each component manufactured to extremely exact tolerances. Integrating a five-minute repeater into a pocket watch takes incredible skill, but fitting one inside a wristwatch adds several magnitudes of intricacy, as the comparatively small case requires the further miniaturisation of what are already extremely small parts. Today, five-minute repeaters, one of the most complex repeater mechanisms, are sought after by fine collectors as rare masterpieces of precision mechanical engineering.
How is the price of a historic fine watch arrived at, broadly?
Providing estimates for such an important, rare and exquisite timepiece is always a big challenge even for the most experienced watch specialist. We believe that fewer than one million Patek Philippe watches have been manufactured since the company’s foundation. That’s fewer than some very high-end Swiss manufacturers produce in a year. Patek Philippe production is so detailed that it takes nine months to make its time-only watches, and more than two years to produce some of the more highly complicated timepieces. The real beauty of a Patek Philippe design lives in its movements. Every component is hand-finished, which might seem an excessive detail considering that it can be admired only when [the case is opened]. The design, artistry and craftsmanship balanced in a Patek Philippe is just timeless.
What might this watch have cost at the time of purchasing it?
We don’t have records of Patek Philippe’s retail prices at that time. We can merely compare it to a present minute repeater price, which is over $300,000.
Could you trace the history of this watch’s ownership from the time it was presented to Morris to the time it reached this auction?
Unfortunately, we are not able to track the full story of the present watch. We know that it has been preciously kept in wise collector’s safe for few decades.
In the technical and brand hierarchy of fine watches, how would you rate this particular watch, without looking into its historical and sentimental value?
[On a scale of] one to 10, my [rating] would be a beautiful eight.
