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JANUARY 2012 -
SEXY X2
MAGAZINE -
9
World’s
Most Expensive
Watches
atch collecting may be one
of the most expensive hob-
bies in the world, but it’s also
one of the most rewarding.
Vacherin Constantin’s Tour de
l’Ile – $1.5 million
Swiss watchmaker Vacheron Con-
stantin marked its 250th anniversary
in 2005 with the world’s most com-
plicated wrist watch—the Tour de
l’Ile. The watch is so complicated
that it required over 10,000 hours of
research to create. Only produced
in a limited edition of seven pieces,
this expensive watch is also the most
complicated double-face watch. Tour
de l’Ile is made with a totally original
combination of horological compli-
cations (that is, features beyond the
simple telling of the time of day) and
astronomical indications composing a
list of sixteen different points including
a minute repeater, sunset time, per-
petual calendar, second time zone, a
tourbillion device, the equation of time
and a representation of the night sky.
Patek Philippe’s Platinum
World Time – over $4 million
The Platinum World Time created by
Patek Philippe was sold at auction for
over $4 million USD in 2002. It is be-
lieved that only one was created and,
at the time, it was the most expensive
wristwatch in the world.
In fact, Patek Philippe had produced
all of the ten most expensive watches
in the world. They had already made
a name for themselves prior to that,
however, by providing watches to
Queen Victoria herself in 1851. If
millions of dollars for a watch is too
much for you, don’t worry you can
find a Patek Philippe starting around
$20,000 USD.
Patek Phillipe’s Supercompli-
cation- $11 million
Patek Philippe’s most expensive watch
was a yellow-gold pocket watch cre-
ated in 1932 for New York banker
Henry Graves, Jr. The watch, Super-
complication, was created as part of
a vain competition Graves had with
Ohio automobile engineer James
Ward Packard to have commissioned
a watch with the most complications
in the world. This watch, of course,
guaranteed that Graves won the con-
test. Supercomplication had a total of
thirty-three different functions.
Chopard’s $25 million watch
Yes, you read that right: twenty-five
million dollars. This gaudy time-
piece by Chopard is adorned with
three heart-shaped diamonds—a
15-carat pink diamond, a 12-carat
blue diamond and an 11-carat white
diamond. For good measure, they
threw in 163 carats of white and
yellow diamonds to bring the total to
201 carats of diamonds. The result
is something that looks rather like a
geode that’s been turned inside out
and dipped in lemon Kool-Aid. Add
to that the fact that the size of the
watch’s face must make telling time
into a fun game of Where’s Waldo
and you’ll see that Chopard has truly
created a recipe for success.
Of course, its $25 million price tag
guarantees its place as the world’s
most expensive watch for years to
come.
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