From the record-setting Patek Phillipe 2499 sold at Sotheby’s to a musical Girard-Perregaux and a colourful Rolex Daytona, we look at the key sales from November’s Geneva watch auctions

By Simon de Burton

 
As a journalist, there’s a sure-fire way to tell whether or not a high-end watch auction has gone well without actually being in the room – and that’s to sit in front of one’s computer and await a storm of hyperbolic press releases that crow about unprecedented prices, world records and vast totals. On a good day, these will arrive within minutes of the gavel falling on the last lot. Sometimes, the blizzard even begins while the sale is still in progress.
 
On not such good occasions, it isn’t unusual to wait several days before the ‘official’  results are quietly released allowing, in some cases, for numbers to be massaged and the picture to be enhanced with the inclusion of pieces sold in post-auction deals.  
I’m writing this almost 24 hours after the last lot was hammered down at Christie’s, which was the last to stage its auction after Phillips, Antiquorum and Sotheby’s. The fact that Phillips has only just supplied its full post-sale release despite being first-up five days ago suggests that the house is not quite so pleased as usual with the outcome.
 
Sotheby’s, on the other hand, was almost instantaneous in announcing (incorrectly – see below) its sal...