Four ultra-rare F.P. Journe watches and Seinfeld's Daytona head to Phillips

Phillips will hold its New York Watch Auction: XV on November 10, led by four ultra-rare F.P. Journe watches and a Rolex Daytona consigned by Jerry Seinfeld. Deputy chairman Paul Boutros calls it the auction house's highest-value sale to date.

The sale carries 170 lots with a combined pre-sale estimate of $24 million to $48 million as of press time. Boutros, the head of watches for the Americas, has overseen Phillips's growing command of hammer prices on the secondary market.

The Journe quartet

The strongest Journe is a pre-Souscription Chronometre a Resonance from 2000, the only known example in pink gold, estimated at $600,000 to $1.2 million. The designation covers cases that predate the 20 numbered Souscription models.

Those pre-Souscription pieces are distinguished by finer engravings than later production carries, and they preceded delivery of the 20 Souscription Resonance watches to clients who had bought the Souscription Tourbillon Souverain a Remontoir d'Egalite that launched the brand.

Boutros puts the total run of pre-Souscription examples at roughly 25 to 30 watches. Phillips has sold just two bearing the designation before, and this pink-gold version may be unique. F.P. Journe is the independent maison we follow closely in our coverage of watches jewelry.

A second-generation Tourbillon a Remontoir made in 1999, immediately after the 20 Souscription Tourbillon watches, carries the same $600,000 to $1.2 million estimate. Fresh to market, it is one of just 15 of 16 believed to survive in original condition.

That originality matters because the watchmaker himself would alter early dials without asking. Boutros recalls that before 2008, if a client sent an early piece in for service, Journe might replace a silvery sub-dial or a grainy main dial he no longer liked.

Boutros says this is the first second-generation Tourbillon a Remontoir ever to appear at Phillips. Continuing the chronology of the brand's early years, a prototype Octa Reserve de Marche from 2000, the third model Journe introduced, is also in the sale.

That prototype bears the serial number Proto/00A and is one of just three made, carrying an estimate in excess of $500,000. It is one of only two that still preserve all the original dial details. The automatic movement offered an unusually long five-day power reserve.

Boutros says the reserve was likely closer to eight days, and that Journe was testing how long the movement could perform well. He adds the first three examples were not sold commercially but given to friends or sold privately to people on the watchmaker's board.

The final Journe is a Tourbillon Souverain Regence Circulaire in platinum, with an engraved rose-gold dial on a platinum bracelet, estimated at $600,000 to $1.2 million. The 2016 limited edition of 20 pieces drew on 18th-century French Regency style.

Most Regence Circulaire examples were cased in rose or pink gold with engraved white-gold mainplates and leather straps, so this salmon-dialed platinum version on a bracelet is exceptionally rare. Boutros says one or two further Journes could be announced before the sale.

The Daytona and Akrivia

The Rolex draw is the very first Daytona ever awarded to a winning race-car driver, Vic Elford, after his victory in the first 24 Hours of Daytona in 1968, where he drove a Porsche 907 Langheck. Provenance includes a letter from Elford confirming ownership.

Elford sold the watch in 2010 to the owner of that winning Porsche 907, and Seinfeld later bought the car and then the watch itself. Seinfeld is consigning it through Phillips at a comparatively modest estimate of $100,000 to $200,000.

Boutros is transparent that it is not a Paul Newman and not untouched. Rolex serviced it during Elford's ownership, likely in 2005, replacing the hands, which came back white. Seinfeld had the hands color-matched to an ivory tone through Ben Clymer.

A unique titanium Akrivia AK02, consigned by its original owner, carries an estimate of $500,000 to $1,000,000. It comes with two dials, one evoking the night sky over Joshua Tree State Park and the other in yellow gold. Boutros says it is the season's only Akrivia.

Patek Philippe

He adds Phillips has not offered one in about a year and a half, so the market will be excited. Patek Philippe is represented by a Ref. 2499 pink-gold second series perpetual calendar chronograph, one of only eight, with bidding starting at $3 million.

F.P. Journe remains among the most contested independent names at auction.