Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication
| Manufacturer | Patek Philippe |
|---|---|
| Also called | The Supercomplication |
| Type | pocket watch |
| Display | Analogue |
| Introduced | 1933 |
| Movement | Mechanical |
The Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication is one of the most complicated mechanical pocket watches ever created. The 18-karat gold watch was assembled by Patek Philippe and named after banker Henry Graves Jr who commissioned it out of his desire to outdo the Grande Complication pocketwatch of American automaker James Ward Packard. The two were both at the top of the watch collecting world, regularly commissioning innovative new timepieces.
It took three years to design, and another five years to manufacture the watch, which was delivered to Henry Graves on January 19, 1933. The Supercomplication was the world’s most complicated mechanical timepiece for more than 50 years, with a total of 24 different functions. These included Westminster chimes, a perpetual calendar, sunrise and sunset times, and a celestial map of New York as seen from the Graves's apartment on Fifth Avenue. The record was bested in 1989 when Patek Philippe released the Patek Philippe Calibre 89.
The Supercomplication remains the most complicated mechanical watch built without the assistance of computers. Graves spent 60,000 Swiss francs (USD $15,000), when he commissioned it in 1925. Adjusting for inflation, the sum is roughly $202,000, measured in 2014 United States dollars.
Henry Graves died in 1953. His daughter Gwendolen inherited the Supercomplication and in 1960 passed it to her son, Reginald ‘Pete’ Fullerton, who sold it to an industrialist from Illinois for $200,000, some $1.5 million today. In 1968, the watch was sold to The Time Museum in Rockford, Illinois, which closed in March 1999. (From January 2001 through February 2004, the Time Museum collection was displayed at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, then sold.) The watch was held in the Rockford Time Museum until it was sold at Sotheby's for a record breaking $11,002,500 to an anonymous bidder in New York City on December 2, 1999. The owner was later known to be a member of the Qatari Royal Family, Sheikh Saud bin Muhammed Al Thani.
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