I cannot help returning to the story of Sylvester Stallone selling his ultra-rare and prestigious white gold Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime for $5.4 million — the most complicated watch in the Patek Philippe core collection — within a few years of him purchasing it.
He had not even removed the watch from its factory packaging.
This is a watch that Mr Stallone said he only managed to buy after writing several letters to the board of Patek Philippe, no doubt proclaiming his love for the piece.
The board eventually gave him the green light to purchase it from an east coast authorised dealer in the United States.
By coincidence, I was interviewing Patek Philippe president Thierry Stern the morning after the watch was sold by Sotheby’s in New York, and he was happy to vent his frustration that a watch, which he would have hoped would have been passed down from one generation to the next, had been flipped for a quick $2 million profit.
“Of course we do not like it, but it can happen. I cannot control everybody. It is not fair for a client that may have been waiting for this piece for many years and then sees it being sold,” Mr Stern told WatchPro.
The retailer that sold the watch has even more reason to be angry. Patek Philippe’s authorised dealers are inundated with requests from clients — many of them big spenders with decades of loyalty to the brand — and have to gently explain why a watch like a Grandmaster Chime will never come their way.
Not easy for clients who are rarely expected to take no for an answer.
I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it does not feel fair that the owner of any watch should be prevented from selling it.
On the other hand, this was a watch that the Rocky star bought in the full knowledge that Patek Philippe would take a dim view, and probably never sell him another unicorn watch, if he resold it.
He broke a verbal contract with the brand and its retailer and it is therefore right that he is kicked out of the queue for any future purchases.