Watches are portable timepieces, used to measure time and intervals. These days, wristwatches go well beyond telling time. They actually talk loud about you and your status. Most of them are a luxury. Thus, wristwatches are not only worn to tell the time, but they also speak volumes about your person as well as your economic class. In this article, you’ll get to know the top 10 most expensive wristwatches in the world.
There are now several brands of wristwatches that are considered even more important than the time they are telling. As indicated earlier, the brand of watch you adorn your wrist with speaks volumes about your economic status.
If you are talking about the brands for quality premium and expensive wristwatches, Rolex, Chopard, Longines, Omega, Armani, Titan, Seiko, and Timex top the list. These wristwatch brands are worn by the rich and famous. You have to be a millionaire before you can afford most of these luxurious watches.
Watches today have to gel with the spirit of the occasion, the mood, and the dressing of the day. Fashionistas believe that wristwatches add to the persona and people who matter must take a lot of care while selecting one for an important occasion.
Whereas most of us can appreciate the world’s most expensive wristwatches, the majority of people don’t have the money to buy them. In this post, we highlight the top most expensive wristwatches.
7 reasons why you should wear good wristwatches
- Watches are convenient
- Wristwatches improve your style
- They are an embodiment of craftsmanship
- Wristwatches a functional
- Watches are reliable
- Watches enhance your branding
- They help you to set and monitor your priorities
Read Also: Top 20 Most Expensive Pets in the World
What Makes Luxury Watches So Expensive?
There are a number of factors that affect the price of luxurious watches. The primary factors that determine how much a luxury timepiece is worth include:
- Brand
- Craftsmanship
- Technology
- Materials used
These factors all work in conjunction to determine the ultimate value of a timepiece.
Top 10 most expensive wristwatches in the World
This list shows the most expensive wristwatches ever sold. The least amount for a single brand of the wristwatch is in the region of $2 million. On the other hand, the most priced wristwatch goes for $55 million. That’s huge right? But that’s some price to pay to maintain your class.
1. Graff Diamonds Hallucination
Cost: $55 million
Owner: Laurence Graff
Auction year: 2014.
Graff Hallucination jewelry is the most expensive wristwatch in the world with a $55 million price tag. This luxurious wristwatch is made of 110 carats of rare multi-colored diamonds. Its design? Very brilliant and fantastic!
No doubt, this exceptionally rare piece of jewelry was birthed after thousands of hours of work from a team of designers, gemologists, and expert craftsmen.
Hallucination takes jewelry watchmaking to an unprecedented new level. Hallucination was manufactured in 2014.
Sale details: https://www.graff.com/international-en/home/
2. Graff Diamonds The Fascination
Cost: $40 million
Maker: Laurence Graff
Auction year: 2015.
Graff Diamonds The Fascination was unveiled at Baselworld. The beautiful piece of jewelry comes with a price tag of $40 million.
The Fascination can serve multiple purposes. It could serve either as a watch or a beautiful bracelet and has a flawless diamond at its heart that can be worn on a ring.
The Fascination features 152.96 carats of white diamonds, with rare, fancy-cut 38.13-carat pear-shaped diamonds at its center. The jewelry is easily interchangeable and easy to wear. This wristwatch definitely gives you the run for your money. Graff Diamonds The Fascination wristwatch was actioned in 2015.
For sales details, visit www.graff.com/
3. Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime
Cost: $31 million
Manufacturer: Patek Philippe Wristwatch
Auction date: 6th November 2020
The Grandmaster Chime is among most expensive wristwatches in the world. Of all the wristwatches made by Patek Philippe, Grandmaster Chime is also the most complicated, with twenty different complications! Among other things, it has a reversible case, two independent dials, and six patented innovations.
This wonderful piece of jewelry is a product of long hours of intense research, design, and production. Strikingly, the design, development, production, and assembly process of the Grandmaster Chime took 100,000 hours.
Moreso, It was manufactured in 2014 by Patek Philippe to commemorate its 175th anniversary. Only seven examples were made, one of which is displayed in the Patek Philippe Museum, Geneva. It was auctioned on the 6th of November, 2020 in Geneva.
See www.phillips.com for sales details
4. Breguet Grande Complication Marie Antoinette
Cost: $30 million
Manufacturing date: 1827
Manufactured with: Gold
Designed by: Abraham-Louis Breguet
This wristwatch incorporates the fullest range of horological expertise known at the time. As of today, Breguet Grande Complication is still considered the 5th most complicated wristwatch in the world. It is the fourth most expensive wristwatch with a cost of $30 million.
Several of its complications include functions such as hours, minutes, seconds, perpetual calendar, equation of time, repetition.
Recommended: 15 Best Smartwatches for Construction Workers (2023)
5. Jaeger-LeCoultre Joaillerie 101 Manchette
Cost: $27 million
Manufactured with: white gold
Manufacturer/designer:
The watch’s self-winding movement has 823 parts and components, all finished with exceptional care. Plates, bridges and bars, every moving part of the motion-work, calendar and repeater mechanisms are made of wood-polished pink gold.
The beautiful timepiece is another product of long years of research and development. It took 19 years for this wristwatch to come to be. Work on the watch was begun in 1783 and completed in 1802. It comes fifth on the list of the most expensive wristwatches in the world.
6. Chopard 201-Carat
Cost: $25 million
Manufacturer: Chopard
Chopard is a force to reckon with when it comes to luxury jewelry and watches. The $25 million Carat Watch is brilliantly covered in 874 high-grade yellow, blue, white, and pink diamonds. With a price tag of $25 million, Chopard is one of the most expensive watches in the world. Altogether, the total weight of the carat is 163 carats, the total weight of the wristwatch is 201 carats.
The wristwatch has center three heart-shaped diamonds at its center like petals of a flower: a 15.37-carat pink diamond, a 12.79-carat blue diamond, and an 11.36-carat D-color (or white) diamond.
The wristwatch was produced in 2000 and was the most expensive watch then. It has 874 individual diamonds of different colors and sizes.
7. Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication
Price: $24 million
Manufacturer: Patek Philippe
This wristwatch remains one of the most complicated mechanical watches created with 24 complications.
The watch contains 920 individual parts, with 430 screws, 110 wheels, 120 removable parts, and 70 jewels. Strikingly, all of the parts are handcrafted on a tiny scale.
The timepiece is a gold, double-dialled and double-openfaced, minute repeating clockwatch with Westminster chimes, grande and petite sonnerie, split seconds chronograph, registers for 60-minutes and 12-hours, perpetual calendar accurate to the year 2100, moon-phases, equation of time, dual power reserve for striking and going trains, mean and sidereal time, central alarm, indications for times of sunrise/sunset and a celestial chart for the night time sky of New York City at 40 degrees 41.0 minutes North latitude.
Its diameter is 74 millimetres (2.9 in); thickness of case with glass 36 millimetres (1.4 in); and weight 536 grams (18.9 oz). The case alone weighs 250 grams (8.8 oz) and was manufactured by Luc Rochat of L’Abbaye.
8. Rolex Paul Newman Daytona
Price: $18.7 million
Manufacturer: Paul Newman
Manufacturing date: 1968
Auction Date: 26th October, 2017
The Rolex Paul Newman Daytona is one of the world’s most highly coveted vintage watches. Newman’s personal Daytona, which he wore for 15 years, sold for 17.75 million USD at an auction in 2017, making it the world’s most expensive Rolex.
The Rolex Cosmograph Daytona is a mechanical chronograph wristwatch designed to meet the needs of racing drivers by measuring elapsed time and calculating average speed.
It is equipped with a tachymetric scale, a sweep seconds hand for reading to 1/8 of a second, and elapsed-time hours and minute displays.
Read Also: 10 Best Smartwatches For Men
9. Jacob & Co. Billionaire Watch
Price:$18 million
Jacob & Co. Billionaire Watch has reached fame as one of the most expensive watches in the world. with a price tag surpassing $18 million.
It measures 58 mm by 47.5 mm and features an 18K white gold case and bracelet. More so, 260 carats of emerald-cut diamonds covers basically every inch of this watch. Apparently, every individual diamond weighs 3 carats, which means this watch will be pretty heavy as well.
10. Patek Philippe Stainless Steel
Price: $12 million
Manufacturing date: 1943
Manufacturer: Patek
Auction date: 12th November, 2016
The appeal of this wristwatch lies in its case. It is made with a high-grade stainless steel case, thus distinguishing itself from other Patek Philippe luxury watches, typically made of yellow or rose gold.
First introduced in 1941, this watch made horology headlines as the first-ever perpetual calendar and chronograph. This may be another yet another reason why this watch impresses collectors.
And while you might think steel would make a watch less valuable than gold, it’s hard to find high-end watches in this material.
