What does a $640,000 Rolex say about watches today?

This is an edition of the newsletter Box + Papers, Cam Wolf’s weekly deep dive into the world of watches. Sign up here.

When it comes to watch industry events, few carry more weight and importance than the Geneva auction season. If Watches and miracles sets the tone for modern pieces, the big sales at houses like Christie’s, Phillips, Sotheby’s and Antiquorum helping crystallize what’s happening in the vintage world. As Sacha Davidoff, one half of the beloved Geneva vintage watch store Roy & Sacha Davidoff, once told me that, compared to Watches and Wonders, “the Geneva auctions are much, much, much, much, much, much bigger because they sell vintage. We probably do 10 to 20, maybe even 30 times more business.” Earlier this week, the watch world gathered in Geneva for this fall’s major auctions.

I kept an even closer eye on these events than usual. because, declining sales let everyone involved in the company ring the alarm bells. So I was interested to see what was selling, why, and how pieces beyond the big dollar headliners were doing. There was even some optimism: “It was an encouraging weekend for everyone involved,” Adam Golden of Menta Watches told me.

But first, a little about those headliners. No two watches were bigger than a unique Breguet and FP Journe. The FPJ was the second Journe ever made, and the first he brought to market, which grossed over $8 million. The Breguet Perpetual Calendar, which sold for more than $2 million, is especially cool because of its importance in looking at history: It’s probably the very first watch with a perpetual calendar and retrograde date display (which arcs across the dial). before returning to the starting point instead of making a full rotation). Coco Chanel’s beloved Paul Iribe originally owned this Breguet in the 1930s!

Both the Journe and the Breguet were discussed extensively when I contacted six dealers this week about this week’s auctions. But instead of letting these experts talk about their diamond of the season, I asked which piece was the most important or revealing finding about the current shape of the watch world. Here are their answers.