Foto e testo presi da Hodinkee
This morning was the historic sale of the Horological Collection of George Daniels at Sotheby's in London. In advance of the sale we went inside the New Bond Street galleries to go hands-on with the grand and the curious pieces of Daniels' amazing collection. Here we have a report of what we found along with the auction's results.
During his lifetime, George Daniels made 23 pocket watches, 4 wristwatches, the 58-piece run of Millennium watches, 1 Mercer box chronometer, and 2 three-wheel Breguet clocks, as well as converted 4 clocks' regulators to grasshopper escapements and a handful of wristwatches to co-axial escapements. Today, Sotheby's sold 4 pocket watches, 1 wristwatch, 4 Millennium watches (including a prototype and 1 of 7 examples in white gold), the Mercer box chronometer, 1 of the Breguet clocks, 2 of the clocks with grasshopper escapements, and many of the co-axial modified watches from what watchmaker and Daniels protege Roger Smith called "the finest body of horological work ever created."
An hour before the auction began the gallery was already packed. People filled the aisles and spilled out into the hall, with bidders having to push their way into view of the auctioneer. You could tell from the moment you arrived that something special was happening.
One of the collection's highlights is the grand complication pocketwatch. This watch, like most Daniels creations, is 18k yellow gold, and features a minute repeater, an instantaneous perpetual calendar, an equation of time, a moon phase, a power reserve, and even a thermometer. Plus there is a one-minute tourbillon with a co-axial escapement at its heart, and the equation of time, year calendar, and power reserve are displayed on the back. This plot had the highest estimate the in sale (500,000-800,000 GBP) and hammered near the top of that at 780,000 GBP.
There is also a co-axial chronograph pocketwatch in the collection, this one with a four-minute tourbillon. The chronograph is a proprietary mechanism called the "compact chronograph," which fits in the tiny cavity next to the balance (you can see this in the foreground of the above photo). The nested registers on the lower left portion of the dial are for the chronograph, with the 30-minute register tucked inside the seconds register. Final hammer price on the chronograph was 550,000 GBP, just above the estimate.
For something more visually minimalistic, but still mechanically complex, there was this 1970s pocket watch, which Daniels made for his daughter. The retrograde hours indicator and large minutes and seconds rings leave a ton of open space on this dial, rendering it extremely clean and elegant looking. Inside is an open-faced one-minute spring detent chronometer tourbillon movement - this complicated-sounding description is an accurate reflection of just how complicated the mechanism is, and when looking at the back, the tourbillon makes a huge visual impact. The watch sold for 290,000 GBP, making it another estimate-clearer.
The final piece in this collection was the legendary Space Travellers' pocketwatch, at which we gave you an in-depth look yesterday. The final sale price was 1,150,000 GBP, just shy of double the high end of the estimate. The crowd gave a resounding applause when the hammer fell after some tense back-and-forth between bidders
In addition to these pocket watches were a few George Daniels wristwatches, including a yellow gold four-minute tourbillon with co-axial escapement and compact chronograph mechanism and a white gold automatic Millennium (one of seven in white gold) with date, slim co-axial escapement, and ornately decorated movement. The former sold for 320,000 GBP, while the latter went for 120,000 GBP.
We told you just a few days ago about the Rolex DateJust that Daniels himself modified to contain a co-axial escapement, and on hand were a number of watches that got similar treatments, including watches from Urban Jurgensen and Omega. There was even a Hamilton that contains the very first ETA co-axial movement, though you wouldn't know it from the unsigned dial. Daniels himself wore this watch around in order to test the new ETA movements, making sure they met his standards. All of these watches far exceeded their estimates, with the Hamilton selling for 7,000 GBP (high estimate of 1,500), the Rolex going for 17,000 GBP (high estimate of 7,000), and the Urban Jurgensen bringing in 50,000 GBP (high estimate of 20,000).
In addition to these watches that Daniels himself worked on, there was a massive selection of watches and other ephemera that Daniels collected over the years. These included the FP Journe presented to him by FP Journe (which sold for 36,000 GBP), some beautiful centuries-old pocket watches, a selection of Arnold chronometers, long case clocks, table clocks, book, statues, prints, oil paintings, and astrological equipment. Though not for sale, Sotheby's even had Daniels' watchmaking bench on hand to give visitors to the preview exhibitions the full Daniels experience.
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