Rarity is a word often overused when it comes to describing the star lots that come up at watch auctions, but at least two of the Patek Philippe pieces in the sale of a private collection hitting the block at Sotheby’s this fall truly represent the rarest of the rare.
“Exceptional Discoveries: The Olmsted Complications Collection,” takes place over two days as part of the Important Watches sale on December 8 and the online Fine Watches auction from November 26 to December 10. Robert M. Olmsted, who passed away in 2024, assembled his collection of rare complications and chronometers over a 60-year period, starting when he was a student at Princeton in the early 1960s. “He was ordering watches from Switzerland and having them delivered to his dorm room at Princeton,” says Daryn Schnipper, chairman emeritus of Sotheby’s international watch division, who worked on the collection and knew Olmsted for many years. By 1971, Olmsted’s collection had grown to over 75 rare watches from the biggest names in horology: Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Abraham Louis Breguet, Dent, Charles Frodsham, S. Smith & Sons, Henry Capt, A. Lange & Söhne and Rolex.
The two highlights of the sale are a pair of never-before-seen Patek Philippe pocket watches, both with double movements and dual sets of hour and minute and seconds hands – a design so rare that no other examples are known to exist. One, made in 1921, incorporates a minute repeater (est. $300,000 – $500,000), while the other, made in 1924, combines a minute repeater with a split-seconds chronograph (est.: $500,000 – $1 million). According to Sotheby’s, they are the only two known pocket watches ever crafted by Patek Philippe or any other maker to date featuring two independent movements, connected solely by a shared winding mechanism. Both of the double movement watches were originally commissioned by American industrialist John Motley Morehead who, along wth Henry Graves Jr. and James Ward Packard, were important American collectors who made Patek Philippe famous for its complications.
“We have never seen anything like these before,” says Schnipper. “They have two separate independent movements that are fitted on top of each other. We’re not sure why they were made that way. One possible explanation is that the second movement was there to run the dual time function, but there really was no reason to have double minutes, hours and seconds because international time had already been established by 1921. The other theory is that it might have been for sidereal (celestial) time, which is four minutes slower than the mean time that we use now. That’s usually something that astronomers would use to help them with celestial navigation. Olmsted was extremely interested in science.”
Another outstanding piece is a silver Patek Philippe paper weight clock, made in 1927 (est. $500,000 – $1 million) – which according to Schnipper, Olmsted said he kept at his bedside. It is one of only three known examples made: the other two now reside in the Patek Philippe museum in Geneva. Before its emergence at auction, the existence of this third clock was previously unknown. Its inclusion in this sale is impeccably timed: in April 2025, Patek Philippe reissued these historic paper weight clocks at Watches & Wonders Geneva, with all 25 units selling out instantly at $1.25 million each.
Another piece on the block, also originally commissioned by Henry Graves Jr., is a yellow gold Patek Philippe open-faced keyless watch with power reserve indication (est. $150,000–250,000). There are also a number of pieces by English watchmaker Charles Frodsham in the collection, including several tourbillions, along with an exceptional 73mm grand complication pocket watch, one of only two examples ever produced (est. $300,000–$500,000). The collection also includes a series of Dent carriage clocks, one of which is believed to have been made for the Paris exhibition of 1867 (est. $50,000 – 70,000).
“Robert Olmsted assembled this collection with an insightful eye and encyclopedic knowledge,” says Schnipper. “He was fascinated from an early age by the mechanical intricacies of clocks and watches, beginning when he first took apart one of his grandmother’s clocks, he devoted his life to collecting pocket watches and clocks. Monday evenings were a ritual, when he reliably wound every timepiece in his apartment, a testament to his dedication and care. What truly sets this collection apart is not only its depth and quality, but also its provenance. Robert acquired pieces exclusively from the most respected dealers or directly from the brands themselves. As a result, the majority, if these remarkable timepieces have never before appeared on the auction market. This collection is a true tour de force of horological ingenuity and rarity, and working on it has been a deeply rewarding journey filled with discoveries and wonder.”
The collection will be on display before the auction, with stops at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong, London and Geneva, and at Sotheby’s New York headquarters in the Breuer building in New York from December 5-7.
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This story was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
