The current record holder is this million-dollar Big Crown that sold at Christie’s in June 2018. The catch? The watch has no bezel or bracelet and certainly looks well-worn. And what did it unseat? This, um, curiosity (to put it kindly) that took the throne just a year before. What do these two watches have in common? They’re unusual and don’t at all look like what you might think of as “pristine, collectable Submariners” on first look. The watch that held the record before either of them, however, was something much more obviously exciting – this chocolate brown, four-line ref. 6538 is about as dreamy as a Sub can get.
Now, there’s definitely a lesson in here somewhere. As collecting becomes increasingly sophisticated and as more previously-unknown watches come to market, the bar for what qualifies as “exceptional” and “rare” is increasingly ratcheted up. The world’s top collectors are looking for new thrills, so to speak, and are looking for watches that are, for better or worse, different. We’re likely going to see more of this over the coming years, and at the very least it will be pretty darn exciting.
You can read more about the current record-holding Submariner here and the strange white gold prototype here.
from Best Watches For Men https://ift.tt/2qUqtD6