Vacheron Constantin Watch Belonging to Marlon Brando To be Auctioned off

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed)
Sep 8th 2009 at 12:01PM

History is filled with special occasion mementos - gifts and relics that help symbolize the times and people we admired or looked to. Watches seem to have a historical relevancy during such instances. Where commemorative watches are either produced for a special event, or just naturally thrown into such events. Old (as well as perhaps modern) Hollywood was filled with the exchange of celebratory gifts. Watch makers located in Hollywood at the time no doubt had a network of personal engravers waiting to personalize a watch - no matter what the request. I find it fascinating to see the many styles of engraving that was done at the time. Here you see engraving that is meant to look more formal, though obviously done by hand, and I've also seen engravings meant to replicate someone's hand writing.

This all has to do with this timepiece being auctioned off later this month by Antiquorum in New York. This is a Gold cased Vacheron Constantin watch that was given to Marlon Brando by Zsa Zsa Gabor in 1954. The watch was produced around that time as well, and represents a style of guilloche engraved dial decoration that you don't see these days anymore. It is said that the watch was given to Brando by Gabor when "On The Waterfront" was released in theaters. The movie went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, as well as Best Actor for Brando. It is interesting to think about the message she wrote to him. Space was of course limited on the back of the watch, but other than the fact that Gabor was giving it to Brando on a specific date, it is hard to delineate what their relationship was. Maybe it included a message that only they understood. A Vacheron Constantin watch was a luxury watch back then, as it is now. Conservative auction estimates have this watch going for only $3,000 - $8,000.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: antiquorum, auction, marlon brando, MarlonBrando, on the waterfront, OnTheWaterfront, vacheron constantin, VacheronConstantin, watch, zsa zsa gabor, ZsaZsaGabor