We all know the main four auction houses for watches. Phillips, Christies, Antiquorum, and Sotheby’s*. But sometimes a smaller and less well known auction house can also have very interesting watches.
Ever heard of Bruun Rasmussen in Denmark? Neither have I.
A follower on my Instagram called hamblar (Adam) pointed out to me last November that an interesting watch was coming up for sale in Denmark. It was a 6062 stelline Rolex – one of the most collectible of Rolex references. I took a look at the pictures and while the watch was certainly in heavily used condition, from what I could tell it was mostly an original watch, at least as pertaining to the dial and case and winding crown.
Now judging a watch on pictures alone is not something I recommend any collector to do, it is much better and more accurate to hold the watch in your hands. But at least on pictures this star dial 6062 seems to have the attributes that I normally look for in such a reference.
For a start the dial carried an only ‘swiss’ signature (see below) which is correct for this reference. Secondly graphics on the calendar date and Rolex signature seemed fine too. The Oyster perpetual signature has been so heavily damaged that it is hard to tell, it might even look like someone possibly tried to restore this part of the dial. The O in Oyster should not look like that. Other than that, the hands seemed fine, calendar, hour and minute hand all correct and what you normally expect on a 6062. The moon phase area also carried the correct graphics on the dial and the seconds indicator seems correct too.
Let me be straight up: The dial is far from perfect and in part is even heavily damaged, but from what I can tell, just observing from the pictures**, this dial seems to be an original one.
The case is not much better than the dial and has been heavily used. It appears even that near the 21 on the calendar ring, the case has suffered a chip.
Let us look at the back of the dial, an hallmark is visible on the left upper lug of the dial.
The winding crown seems correct and also in original condition.
The watch ended up selling just below the low estimate of 1.2m Danish Krone which is equal to $204k using todays exchange rate.
Now a ‘stelline’ in good condition in todays market should fetch half a million dollars. The stelline here sold of course for much less given its heavily used condition which can be seen on both the case but also the dial. You could argue that the watch sold for the condition it represents.
However, I can’t help think that if this stelline 6062 would have been sold by an auction house with more global visibility that this watch would have fetched at least 10-25% more.
In a market where it is becoming increasingly hard for collectors to find watches, it would be a good idea to start looking not only the top tier auction houses but also the ones that might fall under the radar. Bruun Rasmussen is a good example of one such auction house.
*You could also include Artcurial, Bonhams and Watches of Knightsbridge as relatively big players in the watch auction world.
** I don’t advise anyone to judge a watch solely from a few pictures. Because I have not seen the watch – it could be that once I have the watch in my hand – my analysis would be slightly different.
