October’s auction season opens this week on both sides of the Atlantic, and the headliner wears a name that needs no introduction. Sotheby’s Paris closes its Fine Watches sale on the 7th of October, led by a circa-1968 steel Rolex Daytona “Paul Newman” ref. 6241 — with box and papers, estimated at €120,000–260,000. The exotic-dial Daytona remains the market’s most reliable crowd-gatherer, and after Phillips’ Four Seasons quartet rewrote the charity-sale record in London barely a week ago, the appetite for Newmans shows no sign of cooling.
A day later, Bonhams New York closes its online watches sale, where the lot to watch is an H. Moser & Cie. Pioneer Tourbillon “Miami” — number one of the 28-piece edition, estimated at $50,000–70,000, and a reminder that Moser’s colour-saturated Pioneers have quietly become auction-room fixtures. The previews for both sales ran concurrently in Paris and on 57th Street, a neat illustration of how thoroughly the October calendar has gone transatlantic.
The month’s deepest sale, however, waits until the 18th, when Antiquorum takes the rostrum in New York with nine F.P. Journe wristwatches anchoring the final lots. The top estimate belongs to a 2022 platinum Tourbillon Vertical from the Black Series at $800,000–1,400,000, with a salmon-dial Centigraphe Souverain ($600,000–1,000,000) and a pink gold Vagabondage II close behind.
For good measure, there is a pink gold Nautilus 5711/1R with a Tiffany & Co. dial and a Richard Mille RM 35-02 Rafael Nadal — the full modern-collecting canon, in one room at The Ned NoMad.
For Gulf collectors, the sales are a bellwether three weeks before the region’s own season begins: Christie’s Mawasim results land in Abu Dhabi on the 1st of November, and Phillips’ Papaleo Rolex collection follows a week later. Watch the Newman — where it lands, the autumn market follows.
