­Price of time: Breguet clock sets $6.8 million record at auction

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Published time: December 05, 2012 15:06
Edited time: December 05, 2012 19:06

An all-time record for clocks at auction has been set at Sotheby’s when a French 1835 Breguet sold for a jaw-dropping $6.8 million. It’s the second occasion the time piece set a world price record.

The Duc d'Orléans Breguet Sympathique clock was last auctioned in 1999 and sold then for a record setting $5,777,500. The clock was sold by the Time Museum in Rockford, Illinois, Reuters reports.

The top lot in Sotheby’s Important Watches and Clocks sale, the gold and red tortoiseshell quarter-striking clock was described by the auction house as “a timepiece of unparalleled horological and historical significance.” The lot was purchased by a private museum, according to the auction house’s statement. The buyer was not identified.

Only about a dozen of Breguet’s Sympathique clocks are known to exist. The European royal families and the Russian Tsar commissioned the sophisticated and expensive clocks.

The sale also featured a 1955 Patek Philippe 48 mm yellow gold wristwatch which sold for $962,500 many times more than the estimate. Other vintage watches from the late 19th and early 20th century were also auctioned on Tuesday in New York. 

The sale fetched a total of $11.7 million setting another record for Sotheby' with the highest result for a watch and clock sale by the auction house in New York.