Editor’s Note: This guest post was written by Geert Tibosch, co-owner of the leading Dutch watch platform, DeZinVanLuxe (DZVL), which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary.

At a Christie’s auction, held on Monday May 10th in Geneva, a yellow gold Patek Philippe perpetual calendar chronograph, lot 84, was the highlight of the evening:

This beautiful piece, ref. no. 1527, was made in 1943 and sold on August 22nd 1946. Bidding ended at the sum of CHF 6,259,000; which is more than double the estimate of CHF 1,500,000 – CHF 2,500,000. This is almost $5,700,000, which makes it the most expensive yellow gold Patek Philippe ever auctioned.

The winner of the auction is a museum in Switzerland.  Rumour has it that the museum in question is the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva.  This way they can keep the prices of old Pateks at a certain level.  It’s unclear where this rumour came from.

However, this Patek with ref. 1527 isn’t the most expensive Patek ever auctioned. This honour belongs to a Patek Philippe World Time, ref. 1415 HU in platinum. This platinum piece from 1946 was auctioned in April 2002 by Antiquorum in Geneva and realised a stunning CHF 6,603,500, almost $6,000,000.

Patek Philippe Ref 1527

Also, if you did not see it already, be sure to check out Geert’s previous feature article, “The A. Lange That Got Away”!