US director Francis Ford Coppola’s F.P. Journe watch sells for nearly $14m at auction

NEW YORK – In March, American film-maker Francis Ford Coppola said he was nearly broke after spending millions of dollars of his own money to finance his science-fiction film Megalopolis (2024).

In October, he said in an interview with The New York Times that to “keep the ship afloat”, he was selling several of his watches through Phillips, a leading auction house.

On Dec 6, during a frenzied bidding war in Park Avenue, an F.P. Journe timepiece from his collection sold for nearly US$11 million (S$14 million).

It was the sixth-most-expensive watch ever sold at auction. And it is the only watch on that list that was not manufactured by Patek Philippe or Rolex.

Coppola, 86, designed the watch in 2014 as a collaboration with F.P. Journe, a Swiss watch company whose horological marvels are so expensive that they make Rolex look like Swatch.

Called the FFC, the watch sold on Dec 6 has an openwork design, which means its inner workings are on display. The style is sometimes referred to as a skeleton dial.

In the centre of the face is a gloved hand with fingers that disappear and reappear in various configurations depending on the hour.

F.P. Journe was founded in 1999 by France-born watchmaker Francois-Paul Journe. Today, it has a dozen stores around the world in cities such as New York, London, Tokyo, Paris and Dubai. It produces and sells around 900 watches a year.

And watch geeks are notoriously nasty about the merits of the company’s timepieces.

Just a handful of the FFC watches, which retail for around US$1 million, were ever made.

In 2021, a prototype sold for close to US$5 million at Only Watch, a biennial charity auction held in Geneva and sponsored by Prince Albert II of Monaco.

Going into the sale on Dec 6, Mr Paul Boutros, deputy chair and head of Phillips Watches for North America, professed to have little idea what Coppola’s watch might fetch.

Bidding began on Dec 6 shortly before 11am with an absentee bid of US$1 million.

Within seconds, higher bids were shouted out – “two million”, “three million”, “five million”.

From that point, bidding was completed through the phone banks staffed by Phillips specialists, as the watch’s price climbed in increments that ranged from US$100,000 to US$500,000.

After bidding topped out at US$9 million (the final price of US$10.755 million includes auction fees), there was a mix of shock and resignation among high-end watch industry dealers.

“It’s an extraordinary price, but the Journe market is on fire,” said Mr Andrew Shear, a secondary market dealer who regularly sells watches that fetch six figures.

Asked what he thought of the watch, he replied, “I would not wear it”, and called it “goofy”.

Mr Jacek Kozubek, who runs the site Tropical Watch, said many high-end watches appeal to men who want to look like superheroes. Journe timepieces, in his estimation, are more akin to watches for real-life Marvel villains.

Mr Eric Wind, a rival of Mr Kozubek’s on the secondary market, has two Journes available on his site.

“The worst of the worst is trying to buy them,” he said.

“I never would have predicted these would be the ultimate catnip for modern watch enthusiasts,” he added, “but they’re definitely the hottest watches today. Hottest at auction, hottest on the secondary market.”

Mr Boutros said each of the big watch brands has appeal with players of the ethical – and not-so-ethical – varieties. And, he added: “All our buyers are vetted. Carefully.”

The person who bought Coppola’s watch was anonymous, meaning the motivation for the purchase is unknown.

“Obviously, beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Mr Boutros said. NYTIMES