Clearly the highlight of Antiquorum’s Geneva auction of May 13, 2012, the Patek Philippe World Time (Ref. 2523) with guilloche gold center you see here hammered for an impressive 990,000 CHF (about $1.05 million at current f/x).  The extremely fine and extremely rare Patek Philippe watch was made in 1953 and sold on October 10, 1956 by famed French Patek retailer Jean Guillermin.  The watch remained in the original owner’s family until being offered at auction last week.  As you can see from the close-up photos below, the piece remained in amazing unpolished condition for 55 years.  In particular note the sharp and well defined lugs and the deep and clearly visible hallmarks (see photos below for more info).  The piece was overhauled by Patek in May 2011 under very specific instruction from the owner that the watch should only have the movement serviced to ensure good timekeeping but to leave the case in its original untouched condition.   An amazing Patek Philippe and collector’s piece!  Read on for more details and photos.

Patek Philippe Ref 2523 Worldtime

sold at auction for 990,000 CHF (Antiquorum May 13, 2012)

“World Time”, 36mm 18K yellow gold case with two crowns and guilloche dial with an 18K yellow gold Patek Philippe buckle

The lugs still exhibit their sharp definition and angles as they would have had upon original sale in 1956:

The hallmark on the left is on the lug;  on the right we see the caseback hallmarks:  two owls representing the gold importation hallmark for 18k and “JG”, denoting Jean Guillermin, the famed French Patek Philippe retailer:

According to Antiquorum’s research, there has only ever been one other yellow gold 2523 with gold guilloche center bearing the movement number 722700 (only 2 numbers from this example) sold at Antiquorum (lot 410, 15th December 1990).  This leads them to further conclude that the gold Guilloche center examples are the rarest, found less often than both the cloisonne and regular silver dial versions.