The Fourth Wheel, Issue 81

Yet another auction plot twist! And my review of the watch I wore most in 2023

Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that has not quite had enough time to deliver The Big Christmas Surprise this week. My apologies. But I am prepared to reveal what the surprise will be: this time next week I will be sharing the very first Fourth Wheel Christmas Quiz! It is a labour of love and I can’t wait to get it out into the world for you all to - I hope - enjoy.

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The Fourth Wheel is a reader-supported publication with no advertising, sponsorship or commercial partnerships to influence its content. It is made possible by the generous support of its readers: if you think watch journalism could do with a voice that exists outside of the usual media dynamic, please consider taking out a paid subscription. You can start with a free trial!

Here’s a little taste of what you might have missed recently:

The Only Watch Saga, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4
A Brief History Of Lightweight Watchmaking
Hands-on review: The Patek Philippe 6007G
The Twelve Most Significant Watches In The World
A Zoom Call With Jean-Claude Biver, and Ten Ways To Improve The GPHG

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Before we get to the fun part¹, let me once again bring you news of, and snarky comments about, yet another auction house snafu. In reality, this is actually an unexpected plot twist to the last snafu but one: Christie’s Passion For Time sale. This sale, which I touched on here, saw Christie’s bring to market the incredible collection of Mohammed Zaman, which included the Marlon Brando Rolex GMT-Master and several other serious grail watches. Just before the sale, a third-party guarantor entered the picture, prompting Christie’s to raise the estimates and sell the majority of the lots for the new low estimate to the guarantor, the now-infamous paddle 1013. A few watches sold for more, to conventional bidders. At the start of this week, it emerged that Zaman had taken out a legal injunction in the Swiss courts to block Christie’s from completing any of the transactions. The watches are currently being held in escrow pending a hearing on December 11th².

Zaman isn’t commenting, according to his lawyer, and Christie’s has said nothing beyond confirming the bald facts. Evidently, he was unhappy with the auction result - but why? And why did it take nearly a month to reach that conclusion? (Side note, if I paid millions for a watch - heck, if I paid millions for anything - I wouldn’t want to still be waiting to actually go through with the deal three weeks later, but I guess that just reveals what a common sort I am.) I’m told, though I haven’t found a published quote to support this, that Zaman was perfectly happy with the sale result at the time. What changed?

Rob Corder, writing in WatchPro, advances the theory that Christie’s has been somewhat stitched up by its auction rivals, who, he implies, have been whispering in Zaman’s ear that they could have sold his collection for more. Corder strikes a sceptical note, as I’m sure many of you might too, pointing out that the market is far from bullish.

Whatever you think of the shenanigans around the last-minute guarantee and the shifting estimates, it’s hard to dispute that what went down secured Zaman a higher price for his watches than was previously expected. At least if you assume the estimates were accurate. This quote from Christie’s’ Remi Guillemin, given to Hodinkee, is relevant.

"It's completely fake news that we guaranteed Zaman a number from the sale," Guillemin said. "We were approached and put in competition with the other houses, and we pitched the estimates that were eventually put in the catalog and won with traditional terms."

So Christie’s won Zaman’s business with estimates that seemed competitive - estimates that he agreed to, that quote implies - then at the last minute increased the estimates and sold the collection for more than Zaman could probably have expected, and now… he’s been persuaded he could have got even more? I appreciate there are other factors behind the OAK collection underperforming, as discussed last week, but did Zaman really watch that sale unfold and think “yeah, I’m the one who’s really been shafted here”? Feels like he was on the last chopper out of Vietnam, then asked the pilot to turn around because he forgot his wallet.

The identity of the third-party guarantor isn’t public. I’m told that the other auction houses all know who it is, and I suspect a lot of collectors do too. Christie’s confirmed he or she comes from the United States, and my sources tell me he’s a finance bro, but that hardly narrows it down. Christie’s terms and conditions covering third party guarantees are written with the implication that the guarantee accompanies a minimum-price guarantee to the seller, something the house denies in this context, but even so I assume that Zaman knew about the guarantee, probably knew the identity of the guarantor and gave the all-clear to go ahead. All of which makes it even more surprising that he would turn round a few weeks later and be so displeased at the idea of this person buying his watches. Maybe he’s been convinced that the guarantor came in because Christie’s estimates were too low, and intends to try and flip the collection in May. The only auction house, in my opinion, with the confidence to try and pull that off would be Phillips, but I should stress I am not implying any underhand behaviour from them. Just that if it were me, and I’d given Christie’s a shot, that’s probably where I’d turn. It’s a ballsy move though, as Rob Corder points out: Phillips sold the Brando GMT-Master for $1.9m in 2019, and Christie’s just got CHF 4.5m for it. Would you really bet heavily on selling it in 2024 for upwards of 5m? I find it hard to believe collectors with an interest in Zaman’s 113 lots somehow failed to come out and bid on November 6th. Unless, the argument goes, by accepting the guarantee and changing the estimates, Christie’s spooked the market and scared everyone off. Maybe. But I come back to the point that this was an arrangement he must have signed off on - did he really have such drastically different expectations? The whole thing feels like seller’s remorse to me.