You Want Pepsi, He Wants Coke, I’ll Take Root Beer
They boys at Phillips aren’t wasting any time moving to the top of the watch auction game. They’ve been auctioning historic pieces and getting record prices from the get-go last spring.
And the upcoming Auction Three is no different. The piece that caught our eye is Lot 190. “An exceptionally well preserved and most complete yellow gold dual time wristwatch with bracelet, bronze colored dial, and bakelite bezel, accompanied by presentation box and considerable documentation” is how the Phillips catalogue describes it.
An 18K yellow gold GMT-Master ref. 6542 with box & papers from 1958 is how we’d describe it. Not exactly a Root Beer GMT. But we’re thinking you’re not going to quibble over what to nickname a piece of this stature.
And what a sweet piece it is! Riveted bracelet, leaf hands, small-arrow GMT hand, and that dial! One might suspect it was a tropic dial, but apparently not. The catalogue states that it’s “the original color it was born with when it left the Rolex factory nearly 60 years ago.”
(Image credit: Watch Collecting Lifestyle)
And the Bakelite bezel insert is nothing to sneeze at either. When they were first used, those inserts soon proved to be too fragile. Rolex routinely replaced them with painted aluminum inserts whenever a watch equipped with one came in for service.
(Image credit: Phillips Auctions)
The case is unpolished with nice, well-defined edges and bevels. The expandable riveted bracelet seems reasonably tight and straight. There’s a hint of patina on the bracelet, but overall, this thing looks to have only been worn very sparingly.
Phillips’ sale catalogue doesn’t recount the provenance of the piece, but apparently this very watch has sold previously. When it did, it set the record for the highest price ever obtained at auction for a GMT-Master.
(Image credit: Phillips Auctions)
This time around the pre-auction estimate is $186,000 to $290,000. Time once again to tap the trust fund. Do it quick. The watch hits the block May 15th.
The post You Want Pepsi, He Wants Coke, I’ll Take Root Beer appeared first on Bezel & Barrel written by Ed Estlow.
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