All- This morning at the Phillips "Racing Pulse" action in NYC a tropical A384 sold for a US$30,000 hammer price. So, ~US$37,800 with the buyers commission. It was apparently came to Phillips from the son of the original owner with full box and papers. The winning bidder was out of CA. As I was bidding on this piece (unsuccessfully), I am sharing some of the photos below. Best! M
That browniness is ridiculously homogeneous... Not a huge fan of the case, but I bet that it is gorgeous in real life.
I keep thinking these Phillips one off zenith prices won't move the market.. But at some point they have to
I agree. In the past few years, Phillips has probably been the biggest advocate of vintage Zenith among the large auction houses. And, while their top end prices are not going to correlate equivalently with the rest of the market we all participate in, at some point the rest of the collecting community is going to realize the value of vintage Zenith pieces and the overall market will move. This is the second Tropical A384 this year from Phillips to command a price at around US$40,000. (Specifically, Lot 20 in the Phillips June Geneva auction fetched CHF43,750). Below is a link to recent Zenith sales results from Phillips auctions. https://www.phillips.com/artist/13091/zenith/
Mine is going straight in the oven for a bit of toning ... then under the UV sunlights all winter long.
Other than the NOS A384 that they previously auctioned, this was the best example that I've seen come up for sale in recent years. I didn't even bother registering, as I knew it was going to go for crazy money. As other have said, I think it's great to see Phillips including choice references from Zenith and Movado in recent auction (and to see them actually championing them as great watches).
It's good to see that best examples still do command an important premium. It might be frustrating to see watches from the wishlist skyrocketing and getting out of reach but on the other hand we can all be happy with the trend, considering what we have in our collections.
Hello All - First time contributor here. Thank you everyone for your contributions to raising the level of discussion related to the vintage watches. I was the winner of this lot at Phillips, and I thought I would share a handful of photos with the group. Happy holidays!