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GLau's original post offers a rare glimpse into a high-society watch event at Hong Kong's exclusive Gentry Club, highlighting the intersection of luxury lifestyle and horological passion. His account brings to life the excitement of seeing exceptional timepieces and provides a personal encounter with legendary auctioneer Tim Bourne, who shares insights into the record-breaking sale of the Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication. This article distills the community's engagement with GLau's experience, offering additional perspectives on the watch market and collecting.
So many watches were there that this occasion felt like an auction review ! I was too busy to eat much but was totally full from viewing and inspecting so many watches.
This gathering was held at the classy and elegant Gentry Club, a private members club with rare whisky, cigars and other collectibles created for the VIPs of K11 Musea. K11 Musea is a new destination developed by New World Development with CEO Adrian Cheng’s vision of combining and promoting art, culture and design under one roof. New World Development also owns the famous Carlyle hotel in New York City under its Rosewood brand. The newly opened private club Carlyle & Co., inside Rosewood Hotel within K11 Musea, is modeled after the iconic Carlyle hotel with its famed supper club and Bemelmans jazz bar.
A couple years ago, Bonhams the UK auction house made a huge move/investment by hiring Tim THE Legend away from another place. Tim is now helping Bonhams to build its watch business in Asia. He told me the next Bonhams auction will be later on this year. I promised him that I will be there to watch him in action, and he said that he would find more enamel pieces for me to bid on. Was Tim fueling my addiction for enamel ?😂 Thinking more, I should have asked for his autograph and/or a GTG like a WIS groupie ! 😊
Watchbox (a large pre-owned luxury watch company with international presence) was the co-sponsor of the event and it gave a presentation about its vision & mission. It then presented and let the guests inspect trays of watches from big maisons to well-known independent brands: something for everyone. According to Josh (Director of Trading at Watchbox), Watchbox owns over 5,000 pieces in its inventory ! I can only imagine how much it takes to keep this many pieces !
It’s a little less so with the WatchBox set up. That said, having an available buyer and seller so both sides of the market is definitely a valuable resource for collectors and necessary for growth. Even if we don’t like the prices some times.
understanding of the set up of Watchbox ?
Before that I guess it was a family business with Govberg and Tay Liam Wee (Sincere) coming together. No idea how much PE owns, or what other investors there are but I’m sure that info is out there. As a business it seems to be booming, and 2020 was presumably the best year ever for them.
I don't know any of the actual numbers of course, but considering the PE brought in a huge chunk of money to fund the war-chest for this capital intensive business, I'm sure they own a lot. With the amount of money that they have, they can afford to buy out an entire market, pump it up, and manipulate inventory flow.
The “war-chest” has influenced some markets (brands) heavily, it’s a narrow group but that’s something I’m conscious of for the simple fact that I have exposure to this.
What are they going to target next? Good news, I think they're in it for a fairly long haul. So I don't imagine they're going to pull out anytime soon. BUT, if the music does ever stop... We'll all be scrambling to find chairs (musical chairs game reference).
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