Swiss Pocket Watch Sells for Record $24 Million

A Swiss-made pocket watch fetched a record $24 million, the most ever paid for a timepiece, at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva on Tuesday.

The Henry Graves Jr. Supercomplication is named after a New York banker who competed with the car manufacturer James Ward Packard to commission the most elaborate watch possible in the early 20th century, the Wall Street Journal reports. Sotheby’s said afterward that the sale of the watch, designed by luxury Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe, “re-established its supreme status as the most valuable timepiece in auction history,” beating the $11 million record set in 1999.

The timepiece boasts 24 “complications,” or features, besides the basic telling of time. Some of these functions include showing moon phases, the time of sunset and a perpetual calendar that won’t’ require resetting until the year 2100. The device has 920 individual parts, including 430 screws, 110 wheels and 70 jewels.

[WSJ]