![]() ![]() It’s the most expensive wristwatch to ever go to auction. A £30 million Pocket WatchĮarlier in the year the Paul Newman Rolex went up for sale and every other headline mentioned it was the most expensive watch to ever go to auction. That honour belongs to the Henry Graves Jr Supercomplication. Still, it’s not the most extreme pocket watch in the world. ![]() Then Breguet commissioned a perfect replica to enormous expense before, in a stroke of ill-timed serendipity, it turned up again. That pocket watch has one of the more storied histories, as a good while ago it was stolen. It wasn’t the only thing that cut her reign (and the rest of her) short, of course, but that particular watch was extravagant enough to make peasants eating cake seem a flash of restraint on the French Queen’s part. 765 as seen in the film, Darkest Hour, sits on display within the Imperial War Museum in central London, the yellow-gold timepiece remains in perfect working order.Ī couple hundred years before that, Marie Antoinette was presented with arguably the most extravagant pocket watch ever made, again by Breguet. Along with a vaporous cloud of whisky-soaked cigar smoke, Sir Winston Churchill was always accompanied by his so-called Turnip Breguet No. Granted you need to look back through the years, but some pretty big names have had a penchant for pocket watches. Part of a pocket watch’s charm is the same reason wristwatches are so popular: watches are intrinsically outdated, wonderfully archaic things, so why not go a little further back? It’s about as far back as you can go pendulum clocks don’t really fit in the pocket and sundials in Britain? Not likely. Pretentious? So much so – but I can’t help myself. There’s not much more satisfying than taking it out on the tube, nodding approvingly at my own punctuality and nestling the contraption back in my pocket. It’s a bit battered and in silver rather than gold but by god is it dapper. My pocket watch is an old Lemania number. Nowadays they’re a rare breed, gone the way of lace cravats and bowler hats. They were essentially miniaturised clocks, and it took Breguet to come along and make them small enough to wear. Pocket watches predate their wrist-mounted successors by centuries. Still, at least the latter has its uses: it’s really the only way to wear a proper pocket watch. Between an appetite for ten-course meals and a collection of waistcoats I have no excuse for, the fact that I wasn’t born an Edwardian gent is the greatest travesty in British history. ![]()
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