The Fourth Wheel, Issue 51

Oddballs and observations from the Geneva auction weekend

Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that is consigned to the market by its original owner, presenting in unpolished condition. A significant, important, rare and highly attractive newsletter - possibly unique, even¹ - with an unmatched provenance in the industry,² it is presented for sale with a full set of footnotes, copious links and an extract from the archives.

---

---

Before we begin, a quick hello to new subscribers and as ever, my sincere thanks to everyone who is supporting The Fourth Wheel with a paid subscription. It means a lot! May you all find the new-old-stock bargain you are looking for, next time you go searching for watches.

If anyone is in London on May 24th, you may be interested to know that The Watch Collectors’ Club is holding an event as part of Clerkenwell Design Week, in conjunction with Fears Watches, Schofield and Studio Underd0g. If you fancy chatting about watch design (and knowing Giles Ellis of Schofield, all kinds of other fascinating things too) over, I quote, “a full bar”, you can sign up here.

---

I don’t often write about vintage watches on The Fourth Wheel. Not because I’m not interested, more because I find plenty to comment on elsewhere. But the watch industry is built on heritage³, so you can’t get far without a half-decent understanding of the vintage world. And what better time to stretch that muscle again than on the eve of 2023’s first major auction weekend? There are big, big sales from Phillips, Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Antiquorum, and I’ve been through the catalogue for each to see what these sales - snapshots though they are - can tell us about Where We Are Today. Plenty of other writers have already covered some of the biggest lots, and I’ve linked to a few of those below, so I have gone through this with an eye for the oddball, as well as the obvious.

Having read through nearly a thousand lots over five sales, some conclusions sprang immediately to mind.