The gavel is the attribute of the auctioneer. It is also his amulet: to photograph Aurel Bacs with his, we had to wait a few minutes, while an assistant went to look for it from the office, with prior permission from the owner. The one used by Bacs, the architect of the most high-profile watch auctions in history, is a light olive wood hammer with a turned handle. In the final stretch of each batch, he keeps it in the air, with his arm raised, in a questioning gesture designed to unleash the audience’s adrenaline. “We already know that this watch has it all; Now we just need to agree on how much it is worth,” he says in a theatrical tone, while behind him the image of a yellow gold Patek Philippe with chronograph and perpetual calendar is projected, sold by the Beyer jewelry store in 1967: only four were made. units of this model, with the name of the jewelry on the moon phase subdial, and this is the only one for sale. In fact, this same watch already passed through his hands in 2002, when it was acquired by a specialized collector. Twenty-one years later, it is back on sale. After a symbolic struggle, a few minutes later the hammer falls when the counter on the screen reads 690,000 Swiss francs which, with the 27% commission for the auction house, means for the happy buyer an outlay of 876,000 Swiss francs (908,000 euros). . “Sold!”. The audience applauds.
The Phillips watch auction in Geneva at the beginning of November takes place in a pavilion built ad hoc in the garden of La Réserve, a luxury hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva. In the living room, the felt that covers the floor and walls muffles noise. During the five hours that each session lasts, only the auctioneer’s voice is heard. The chatter of the rest of the agents, who talk to potential buyers on the phone, is barely background noise. Discretion prevails: some cover their mouths when speaking. The auction is a liturgy based on vertigo. No champagne glasses or piano music. The auction begins with the chords of Can’t Stopby Red Hot Chili Peppers: millennial energy of a sporting event for a competition that is experiencing its golden moment.
“The atmosphere here has nothing to do with a jewelry store, where you go to buy a watch and the employees whisper to ask you if you want another coffee. What we have here is action. An auction is like a stock market session.” Bacs dominates the speech. The co-founder with Livia Russo of the specialized company Bacs & Russo, associated with Phillips and responsible for its watch division, has to his credit the greatest milestone in the history of the sector: in 2017 he sold a Rolex Daytona that had belonged to Paul Newman for more than 17 million dollars. Although no other watch has come close to that amount since then, business is going from strength to strength. In 2022, his watch division reached a total volume of $227 million, 10% more than the previous year, the highest annual result achieved by a department of this type.
In any case, the watch industry is going through a particularly sweet moment: Swiss watch exports broke records in 2022, reaching 23 billion Swiss francs (about 23.69 billion euros), an all-time high. The main brands report impressive figures with waiting lists, limited editions that sell out before they go on sale and a flourishing secondary market. In this framework, auctions show the most sybaritic side. They offer rare, antique or scarce models from cult brands – Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and FP Journe occupy the top positions – to a public in top financial condition.
The Phillips auction in Geneva, which precedes those in Hong Kong and New York, is the annual highlight of the sector. Before it begins, Bacs assesses his forecasts. The year 2023 is being turbulent, with international conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine. “But not everything that is happening in the world impacts everyone in the same way,” he reasons. “Of course, the European and American stock markets are calmer than six months ago, but have you seen the price of gold? Bitcoins? Oil? There are many people who have less money in their pockets, but also many people who have more. It’s all contradictory and simultaneous. At the same time, the appetite for rare, quality watches is stronger than ever. “I am optimistic, although cautiously.”
Although most international auction houses have watch departments, it is Bacs that has changed the game. On this occasion, 187 watches are on sale, which will be sold during two sessions that begin at two in the afternoon. Watches are paid for in cash in Swiss francs. The pace is fast, about 20 models per hour. There are high moments and moments of calm, important pieces and more unknown watches. “A good selection of watches is not a question of number. This time we have less than usual, but it is a very balanced auction. We have vintage models, contemporary watches, independent brands and some other rarities. A big auction is like a tasting menu: you can’t put seven meat dishes on it,” explains Bacs.
Swiss from Zurich, Aurel Bacs was born into a family fond of mechanics. “As a child I played with electric trains and fixed my bicycle. Everything that moved and had motors or gears fascinated me,” he recalls. In the seventies his father, an architect and former sports driver, became interested in antique watches and began taking his son to markets and antique shops. The flame caught: at age 12, Bacs asked for a book of watches as a Christmas gift. “I remember reading it 20 times during the holidays, comparing models and references,” he recalls. His hobby ended up becoming his profession. “Instead of finishing my law degree in Zurich, I took a job at an auction house in 1995 for a salary that was a third of what my classmates earned after graduating.”
If the gavel is the auctioneer’s attribute, his most lasting work is the catalogues. “When I started in the nineties I made catalogs like those of my predecessors in the eighties: correct but cold descriptions.” Transforming such a specialized market into a million-dollar and passionate business required a change of language. “Why do people collect watches?” he asks. “For the same reason you collect art or cars. Nobody buys a 12-cylinder Ferrari to take their kids to school. That’s why you buy a Volkswagen Golf. Collecting is not something rational, but emotional. And it makes no sense to describe it rationally. You have to describe what a watch means. The beauty of a golden sphere. The patina of a watch worn by a soldier in the Korean War. A watch that has been on the wrist of an emperor or Paul Newman.”
In the stands on either side of the audience, a dozen agents talk to their clients by phone and bid on their behalf. Sometimes they get on the stand to relieve Bacs. At the microphone, they make jokes and encourage the audience. Everyone speaks in English, but they alternate with French, Italian, German or Chinese. They are experts, also small celebrities. Days before the auction, they themselves show customers the watches for sale. It is often the only opportunity to see nearly impossible-to-find museum pieces up close. “Even in times of war, people continue reading, studying, learning, sharing their visions and dreams with other collectors,” explains Bacs. “Today there are many more billionaires than 20 years ago. But there are still only four examples of some watches. What will happen? What they teach my daughter in high school: the principle of supply and demand.”
The reason behind the watch boom may be pure capitalist logic, but its magnitude never ceases to impress. “When I first became interested in watches, you could buy a Patek Philippe 1518 for less than $10,000. Now it costs a million,” she reflects. Bacs takes out a sheet of paper and draws an upward curve with small peaks. “This is what the market has been like for the last 40 years,” he explains. “There have been several spikes, and some corrections. But the market is growing.” He points out some key moments: 1989, when for the first time a watch reached a million dollars, or 1999, when another model reached 11 million. Paul Newman’s Rolex marked a change of scale. “That morning, people asked me what price I thought it would reach. I said between 3 and 5 million. Then it was 17 million for a watch vintage which, if it weren’t for its history, you could have bought for 150,000 or 200,000 dollars. With 17 million you can buy a warhol or a basquiat. For the first time, the world learned that we existed, and watches were no longer the hobby peculiar to a peculiar group of people.”
Among the audience there are gray-haired gentlemen with printed scarves around their necks and tweed jackets, as well as young people who prove that the much-promoted “silent luxury” exists. They wear cashmere sports jackets, gray caps without logos, white sneakers, airpods and mohair sweaters. A silent young Asian man with a cap raises the paddle and takes a lot for almost half a million. Three Italian twentysomethings discuss discreetly and consult their cell phones to calculate currency and commissions. In the front row, a couple of journalists look back to make a mental note of who buys what. An elderly couple follows the auction attentively, highlighting figures. They might be low-key collectors, but they are Bacs’s parents. His offspring, on the stand, with a green suit, carefully combed hair and a three-day beard, exercises his office with the confidence of an orchestra conductor. He distributes witty phrases and poetic allusions to watches, addresses collectors, cheers up his colleagues and broadcasts the bids that come to him from his own room, from telephones and from the Internet, which is the platform from which the biggest bids are made. operations. He modulates the rhythm of the bidding, which progresses well. Many watches exceed estimates. A Patek Philippe Nautilus in platinum sells for more than 2.5 million Swiss francs and a stainless steel Rolex reaches 2.1 million. Two records support a final total figure of 39 million, although the last lot, a model belonging to the submariner Robert Palmer Bradley, remains unsold. In return, a century-old model exceeds half a million. “The last time this watch was on sale, five years ago, it sold for less. And that shows that in these years the culture of the public has increased. “No one buys a watch like that to show off to friends.”
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#Theater #precision #exclusive #auctions #expensive #watches