SOTHEBY’S – SEPT/DEC 2017

The latest auctions of Sotheby’s watches

THE SALES LOCATIONS

Sotheby’s is the only auction house in this ranking that operates on the four main capitals of the art market (London, Hong Kong, Geneva and New York) for a total sales revenue of nearly $ 30 million. If Hong Kong has been the most dynamic place, for live auctions, it is certainly online sales that will need to be monitored in 2018, if we observe all their latest development by the end of the last season.

THE RECORDS

Sotheby’s has established its top three records between Asia and Europe, one for a Patek Philippe Ref. 5002R in Hong Kong, which is usual, the other two for Richard Mille in Hong Kong and George Daniels in London, the best of the season, a watchmaker essential to the rise of a new generation of collectors for independent watch brands.

THE BRANDS

Through major watch brands sold at Sotheby’s, the presence of the English watchmaker George Daniels, which is not a brand as to speak but the essence of independent watchmaking, can justify alone the growing appetite of collectors for all independent brands, starting with the very innovative brand Richard Mille who comes second, just ahead of Patek Philippe.

THE KEY FIGURES

Looking at the figures in the various Sotheby’s auctions, we note that Patek Philippe no longer comes in first place for the best result of the year, the two podium places being occupied by independent watchmaking through its founding spirit George Daniels and his contemporary follower, Richard Mille.

THE KEY POINTS

If independent watchmaking is well represented with Sotheby’s end-of-season best results, we should also notice, as we will see for the other auction houses, the very good results of Audemars Piguet, a brand that is more and more appreciated among all collectors of vintage watches among others.

ANALYSIS AND TRENDS FOR THE MAJOR BRANDS

If Patek Philippe still retains its number one place in the ranking of brands for the last sales of the season at Sotheby’s, we realize that the exceptional result of George Daniels propels the watchmaker to the top of the podium of best results from last season at Sotheby’s which is a rich teaching of meaning.

For many years, watch brands were used to always seeing the name of Patek Philippe alone at the top of the poster and yet this was not the case through the results we studied for the end of the season at Sotheby’s. An analysis that leads us to look at the potential of different watch brands.

In a world where information is more and more frequent and circulating faster and faster, it’s interesting to see that it is not enough to rely only on the number of internet clicks to recognize the brand’s value. On the contrary, via traditional auctions, the brand needs to deliver a message that speaks to the heart of collectors.

If we look at the main watch brands that are present in this ranking, we observe that they all have a clear message with values or a patrimony that speaks to collectors of all vintage watches. These are the values that make the difference with collectors who are looking for a real line of conduct in the strategic approach of the brand’s value proposition.

The main lesson of this first dashboard shows us once again that watch brands must draw on their heritage or otherwise in their own industry values to have the benevolent eye of collectors, more and more informed and who know dissociated real speeches from false marketing concepts far from the watch brand’s soul with its own history.

The brand is just an extension of a strategy that aims to bring values of a cultural heritage and differentiation into an increasingly competitive market, which once again shows how important the efforts are from curators to bring the good word in the vintage world which bears fruit at auction, evidenced by the presence in this ranking of Jaeger LeCoultre and Audemars Piguet.

Apart from the Rolex phenomenon, which is undoubtedly one of the strongest speculative bubbles in recent years, we note the presence of this brand with each time in the ranking of the best results a reference belonging to the family of the Daytona, which reinforces the brand’s discourse with its sponsorship strategy in motorsport in perfect coherence with the auction world.

Indeed, the success of the main brands at auction this year went to those brands who have a coherence in the marketing speech perfectly aligned with the demand from collectors. It has been too long where offer was the core business of the watch industry, the more and more accelerating world in which we are living in leads us to take time and select brands which are emphasizing on their main value proposition.

You will soon receive our analysis of the other two auction houses on the podium.

GEOFFROY ADER