On November 9, 2019, at the Only Watch auction in Geneva, run by Christie's at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues, a Patek Philippe crossed the block carrying an estimate of CHF 2.5 to 3 million. It was the Grandmaster Chime Ref. 6300A-010. The bidding ran about ten minutes, the room broke into applause at the end of it, and it sold for CHF 31,000,000 — ten times the estimate, with no buyer's premium; the night was for charity. Guinness World Records certifies it as the most expensive wristwatch ever sold at auction — and it still is.
The Grandmaster Chime is Patek Philippe's most complicated wristwatch: 20 complications, 1,366 parts in the Calibre 300 movement — grande and petite sonnerie among five chiming modes, a minute repeater, an acoustic alarm that strikes the alarm time, a date repeater, a perpetual calendar — in a 47.7mm reversible case flipping between two dials, golden opaline on one side, ebony black on the other. The regular model is gold. This one, made once for this auction, is stainless steel — the metal Patek reaches for only on its rarest occasions — and the dial carries the inscription that named it: "The Only One."
The number was bigger than the wristwatch record. It was the most paid for any watch of any kind at auction. The overall mark had belonged to another Patek: the Henry Graves Jr. Supercomplication, a gold pocket watch built by hand between 1925 and 1932, which sold at Sotheby's in Geneva in 2014 for CHF 23.2 million, buyer's premium included. A pocket watch, from the age of pocket watches, a generation in the making. The Grandmaster Chime — a machine you wear on your wrist — passed it by nearly eight million francs.
Steel is the twist the whole price hangs on. At this end of watchmaking, steel is not the humble option; it is the rationed one. The Grandmaster Chime's regular production is gold, and Patek does not hand its most complicated movement a steel case as a cost decision — it does it as a statement, for a piece that will never be repeated. Collectors read that code instantly. The room in Geneva did not need the dial to explain it, but the dial explains it anyway, in plain words, where a model name would usually sit: The Only One.
There is no second steel Grandmaster Chime, and there will not be. Patek built exactly one and gave it to a charity sale — and the room understood: a one-of-one from the most conservative watchmaker in Switzerland costs whatever it costs, once.
The sale around it shows how far out of line the number was. Only Watch 2019 was 50 one-off watches, each donated by its maker. The other 49 lots averaged about CHF 155,000 apiece — a strong result by any normal standard — and the previous edition of the same auction, in 2017, had raised CHF 9.29 million in total. The 2019 total was CHF 38,593,000, and one watch accounted for four-fifths of it. The man who bought it was not in the room: he was in Asia, bidding by telephone.
Only Watch exists because of one family. Luc Pettavino founded the auction after his son Paul was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a degenerative disease with no cure. The sale has run every two years since 2005, under the patronage of Prince Albert II of Monaco, and 99% of its proceeds go to research into the disease, channelled through the Monegasque association Pettavino co-founded. Paul died before his 21st birthday; he did not live to see the 2019 edition. The record set that night is, in the most literal sense, research money.
The wristwatch record it took had belonged to Paul Newman's Rolex Daytona, sold for $17,752,500 at Phillips in New York in October 2017. The Daytona's price lived in its provenance — a famous man's personal watch. The Grandmaster Chime passed it as a machine, a new object with no history attached. And its price carried no premium and no theatre of speculation: every franc of it was a donation with a watch attached.
Seven years on, the number has not moved. Rankings published in October 2026 still place the 6300A at the top of every watch ever sold at auction — above the Graves pocket watch, above the Newman Daytona, above everything the fevered watch market of the 2020s has thrown at it since. Prices for ordinary collectible watches have swung hard in those years, up and then down. The one-off steel Patek's record has not been approached, because approaching it requires a second watch like it, and the entire point of the watch is that there isn't one.
The Take
Watch records usually need a ghost — a Newman, a story worn into the steel. This one needed nothing but the watch and the word "only." Patek Philippe built its name on refusing to make more of things. The 6300A is that refusal at its limit: one watch, one night, one number nobody has reached since. That is what "never again" costs when it is true.
Sources · 8 sources
- Guinness World Records — the official record pages: most expensive wristwatch sold at auction, and most expensive watch overall (CHF 31M, November 9, 2019, the eighth Only Watch auction at Christie's, Geneva; $33,649,500 at its conversion; no buyer's premium; 99% of the CHF 38,593,000 total to muscular dystrophy research; the previous overall record — the Henry Graves Jr. Supercomplication, CHF 23.22M including premium, Sotheby's, Geneva, November 11, 2014; the previous wristwatch record — the Paul Newman Daytona, $17,752,500, Phillips, New York, October 26, 2017).
- Christie's — Only Watch 2019 record coverage and its most-expensive-watches retrospective (CHF 31,000,000; 20 complications, five chiming modes, acoustic alarm, date repeater; reversible case).
- Watches by SJX — auction report, Only Watch 2019 (50 lots; the other 49 averaging about CHF 155,000; the 2017 edition's CHF 9.29 million total; the buyer bidding by telephone from Asia; the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues room).
- MR PORTER, The Journal — Luc Pettavino on Only Watch (his son Paul's diagnosis; the ten minutes of bidding and the room's applause).
- Fundraising UK — the eighth Only Watch (a biennial charity auction held every two years since 2005, founded by Luc Pettavino, raising money for research into Duchenne muscular dystrophy under Prince Albert of Monaco).
- Time and Tide Watches — the Christie's estimate for the lot: CHF 2.5–3 million.
- Stuff — the ten most expensive watches ever sold at auction, accurate as of October 2026 (the 6300A still first; 47.7mm case; the only Grandmaster Chime in stainless steel).
- Hypebeast — Only Watch 2019 report (the Newman Daytona's previous record).
