by ButterflyEffect

The auctiongoers took their seats in the brightly lit white-walled room, iPhones at the ready to document what promised to be a momentous event. Just a few days before the sale, well after catalogs had been printed and shipped to collectors around the world, Phillips had announced a surprise first lot: a new Patek Philippe reference 5711 Nautilus sports watch, made in partnership with Tiffany’s, complete with a robin’s egg dial. The watch’s retail price was $52,635—spare change for the kind of big-game collector auction houses typically target. Earlier in the year, Patek Philippe (perhaps the ne plus ultra of luxury watchmakers) had sent the watch world into hysterics when it announced that it would discontinue the 5711, perhaps its most iconic model. The Tiffany’s iteration would be among the last ever produced. Patek made just 170 of them, so unless you were one of Tiffany’s 169 best customers, your only chance to buy one new was to bid on it this morning at Phillips.