$1.3 Million Patek Philippe Sky Moon Tourbillon Ref. 5002P Watch Up For Auction

The watch community gets really excited when Antiquorum has one of their highly publicized watch auctions. To garner a lot of attention they find a combination of 'celebrity' and rare watches. In addition to the exciting watches such as Gandhi's Zenith pocket watch, there are ultra rare 'investment grade' watches such as this Patek Philippe Sky Moon Tourbillon. Why investment grade? Because it retailed for a few hundred thousand dollars just a few years ago in 2005, and was recently sold in a Hong Kong auction for $1.7 million. Talk about appreciation!

This Sky Moon Tourbillon Ref. 5002P is special for a number of reasons. Other than being exceedingly rare, it is the most complex wrist watch ever made by Patek Phillipe. Look in the image gallery and you will notice that it actually has two faces. The front side is opaline white with small embossed Calatrava crosses and gold hour indicators. Complications there include a perpetual calendar, retrograde date, equation of time, time with hours and minutes, and the moon phase. Turn the watch around for a remarkable celestial view. There you have the sidereal time, a skychart showing the placement of the stars, phase and orbit of the moon, as well as a 24 hour hand.

I have to say that I prefer the celestial side of the face, but no one is really going to be wearing this watch are they? Antiquorum projects a sale price of 1-1.3 million dollars at the March 4 - 5, 2009 auction. Their estimates are typically shy, and I've seen prices go higher than estimates. We will wait and see.

Ariel Adams publishes the watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.