Auctions: The Military And CIA-Provenance Highlights Of The Monaco Legend Group Spring Auction

The spring auction season is in full swing, with auctions in Hong Kong already underway and many more to come. In a few weeks, attention will turn to the Geneva auctions for Phillips, Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Antiquorum. However, before Geneva takes the center stage, Monaco Legend Group returns to the principality for its spring auction on Saturday, April 26, and Sunday, April 27, at its usual location in Monaco. While MLG has historically focused on pieces that catch the eyes of vintage collectors, this year’s catalog seems even more focused on fascinating “deep cuts” and interesting stories. 

Every good auction nowadays seems to need a few massively expensive “grail-level” pieces, and the cover lots this year for MLG fit the bill. First is a fresh-to-market version of the first serially-produced perpetual calendar, made by Patek Philippe, a ref. 1526 in pink gold, with a pink dial, signed by the retailer Casa Masson in Brazil, with a massive magnifying “cyclops” over the moonphase and date. 

There’s also an example of the water-resistant Oyster case calendar Rolex, the ref. 6062, in stainless steel with an Arabic-numeral dial configuration. That watch last sold at Christie’s in 2009 for CHF 447,000. The estimates are €500,000 to 1,000,000 for the Patek and over €1,000,000 for the Rolex. But I was drawn in by three watches with fascinating provenance, including – of course – one incredibly cool pocket watch.

I wouldn’t be true to myself if I didn’t lead with the pocket watch ordered by the former Director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, and delivered less than a year after he left that position. One of two incredible Breguet pocket watches in the auction (the other being a Grande et Petite Sonnerie Perpetual Calendar made in 1980), Lot 119 is unusual for many reasons besides the provenance. 

I don’t much associate pocket watches from the 1960s with this kind of semi-skeletonized designs, but if there’s a watch that deserves it, it’s this one. The watch has a one-minute tourbillon, a split-seconds chronograph, a minute repeater, and a gilded movement, all made in collaboration with Victorin Piguet in Geneva, as confirmed by Breguet’s President of the Archive. It’s also cased in silver, which is unusual for the 1960s. But the provenance is genuinely fascinating. 

Dulles was the first civilian director of Central Intelligence from 1953 to 1961. He was in charge and responsible for a lot of historic and sometimes unsavory or unsuccessful programs, from the 1953 Iranian and 1954 Guatemalan coups d’état, the creation of the U-2 spy plane, the infamous Project MKUltra, and the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 (for which President John F. Kennedy fired him). The idea that he was doing all this while ordering a unique Breguet pocket watch is wild. The watch has an auction estimate of €120,000 –⁠ 240,000.

I think I first learned about “Albino” GMT-Masters from Ben’s story in 2015 on the watches. They’re enigmatic watches that are now generally accepted by the collector community as the real deal, but they’re so rare and mythical that some people will always remain unconvinced. Fair enough – I won’t be able to change your mind here either. But in addition to all the anecdotal evidence (I’ve been told from folks on the inside of “The Crown” that Rolex’s creation of a white meteorite-dialed GMT-Master II is an implicit acknowledgement of the original, for instance), this example comes from the original owner with military provenance.

Lot 22, early in the auction, is the ref. 6542 “Albino” GMT-Master that belonged to a Chilean Marine Infantry soldier and was worn by him throughout his career in the Armada de Chile, where he eventually became Suboficial Mayor. The dial, like the rest of the watch, is well-worn, and the bezel is the later-style steel bezel instead of the bakelite that the reference is usually known for. Monaco Legends points out that this is a later example and that Rolex did start transitioning away from Bakelite before discontinuing the watch for the ref. 1675 (which is true). From the photos, it looks like this dial had a pad printing that was not as sharp as other examples, but I talked to someone who has sold two of these, and they said the watch looked correct, just not the strongest. As always, it’s good to do your research on any reference before buying, especially when the estimate is €120,000 to €240,000. However, an original owner’s watch like this is the kind of thing top-tier collectors would kill for.

Finally, here’s one where it’s a bit cheating to say it’s got military provenance, because this Eberhard was ordered for military use but never delivered. I guess that’s what happens when the ruling government loses World War II. I previously covered a pocket watch in the “Sistema Magini” lineage. It had ties to a little-known Italian effort to coordinate with the Japanese when they believed their codes had been broken during the war. The Italian Air Force later ordered 10 split-second wristwatches, but they were never delivered because the war ended before they were finished. That said, they’re among the most incredible watches among a stable of already excellent split-seconds chronographs of the era.

This example of Eberhard Modello Magini Split-Second Chronograph in the auction, lot 237, has an oversized 51mm steel case with chromed metal parts (including the caseback that is a bit pitted, as you’d expect after 80 years). The 24-hour dial looks honest, with some incredible font, the blue and gold Breguet hour and minute hands, and a date window at 12 o’clock. The movement is a modified Valjoux 55, similar to ones found in the rare Rolex split, Minerva split, and others. This example came up for sale at an auction in Milan in 2019, where it sold for €125,000. Now the estimate is a conservative €50,000 to⁠ 100,000.

For more information about the auction, click here. 

Photos courtesy Monaco Legend Group.

​Hodinkee 

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