While the vintage watch auction scene has been on fire in recent years, it remains closely guarded by a small selection of major players. Phillips and Christie’s continue to set sales records, including the first Rolex Submariner to achieve north of $1 million and the success of Phillips’s “Winning Icons – Legendary Watches of the 20th Century,” which sold $28.8 million worth of timepieces in a single evening. In spring alone, the watch auctions of Phillips netted a remarkable $61 million—a 17 percent increase from a year earlier.
Alongside this powerhouse duo, Sotheby’s, Antiquorum and Heritage Auctions (among others) pick up the balance of watch auction sales around the globe.
Now Bob’s Watches, one of the larger preowned Rolex dealers in the digital space, and Eric Wind, a former Christie’s watch specialist and founder of Wind Vintage, are aiming to disrupt the space. The duo has set out to challenge the traditional auction format with their first online auction, a 12-lot sale running Sept. 5-12.
All the watches will be sold as complete sets with box and papers, which is not a common occurrence—as few as one in every 40 vintage watches that head to market come complete. But the biggest change at hand is that no buyer’s premium will be charged on any sale. With traditional auction houses, that premium usually runs in the range of 25 percent on top of the hammer price until somewhere north of $175,000 that percentage shifts to 20%, which isn’t exactly chump change. (When Paul Newman’s Rolex Daytona shattered auction records by gaveling at $15.5 million last October, the premium bumped the final price up to $17.8 million. You could buy a lot more watches for that additional $2 million.)
“Not being a traditional auction house, we simply don’t have the same expensive overhead to manage,” says Paul Altieri, owner of Bob’s Watches. “Thanks to this, we’re happy to be able to offer this auction format at no cost to our fellow buyers and collectors.” Instead, Bob’s Watches will generate revenue off of the margins from the acquisition and sale of the 12 watches heading to the auction block.
Known for being an avid collector of vintage Rolex watches, Altieri is no stranger to the auction world. In fact, the majority of the 12 watches up for sale are from his personal collection, which no doubt further facilitates this no-premium arrangement. On top of the deletion of the buyer’s premium, they are even going so far as to offer a 1-year warranty on all of the watches sold, as well as free shipping within the U.S.
“For a conventional auction house, not charging a buyer’s premium is a losing proposition,” says William Massena, former COO of the auction house Antiquorum and managing director of the watch forum Timezone. “Approaching this as a digital sales platform that already has the required infrastructure in-house, on the other hand, definitely shows potential for success.”
Of the dozen watches on sale, a Rolex 6239 Paul Newman Daytona in impeccable condition is the highlight of the bunch, listed with a starting bid of $190,000, though Altieri expects it to sell for roughly $250,000. Aside from some light polishing, the watch appears in honest original condition, replete with light scratching on the case consistent with the piece’s origin story. Owned from new by a physician (who then sold the watch at the age of 87), the piece was worn daily for the majority of his life. Unlike many Paul Newman Daytonas to cross the block, this is one of very few with a pristine cream-colored panda dial (its light dial contrasted by dark subdials resemble the face of a panda). It’s also one of even fewer that retains its original documentation right down to its original sales window hang-tag.
From a condition and completeness standpoint, this 6239 is in more prime condition than Paul Newman’s personal 6239 Daytona that claimed an astronomical $17.8M last October, and considering 5 of the 32 lots of the recent Phillips Daytona Ultimatum sold for more than $1M, it’s not out of the cards that this lot could do quite well.
Alongside the Paul Newman, four other Rolex Submariners are also on offer (including a one-owner ref. 1680 ‘Red’ Submariner), as well as a well-kept early Milgaus from 1967.