Phillips Watches is the watches-and-jewellery department of the British-founded auction house Phillips, established in its current form in 2014 when Aurel Bacs left Christie's to set up the new department in association with Bacs & Russo. Phillips itself is owned by the Russian-Israeli Mercury Group; the watches department operates with significant editorial and curatorial autonomy under Bacs and his team. Auction-house industry estimates put Phillips Watches' annual sales at approximately CHF 200 million as of 2023, making it the second-largest watch auction operation worldwide after Christie's but with consistently the highest individual-lot results.
Aurel Bacs is the watch industry's most prominent auctioneer. Swiss, born 1972, Bacs joined Christie's in 2003 and led the Christie's watch department through the 2008-2014 period that saw vintage Patek and Rolex prices break records repeatedly. He left Christie's in 2014 to establish the new Phillips Watches department; his consultancy Bacs & Russo (with Livia Russo, his wife and collaborator) provides the curatorial and auctioneering muscle. Bacs is widely credited with establishing modern watch-auction theatre: lengthy storytelling on each lot, dramatic pacing, and the particular high-energy Geneva auction style that has become a YouTube genre on its own.
"In any other auction house, the lot is announced and sold. With Aurel, you hear the watch's entire story before the bidding starts. The price difference is what makes Phillips Phillips."- Watch industry commentary on the Phillips auction style
Phillips Watches' record-setting results in the 2014-2023 decade have rewritten the modern auction price ceiling. The Paul Newman Rolex Daytona ref. 6239 sold by Phillips in October 2017 for USD 17.8 million was, at the time, the most expensive wristwatch ever sold at auction (Newman's personal watch, gifted to him by his wife Joanne Woodward in 1968 and inscribed "DRIVE CAREFULLY ME"). The Patek Philippe ref. 1518 in stainless steel sold by Phillips in November 2016 for CHF 11.1 million, the highest auction price for a Patek Philippe wristwatch until the Only Watch 6300A-010 in 2019 (CHF 31M).
Phillips Watches operates a specific calendar. The flagship sales are the Geneva Watch Auctions, held twice a year in May and November at the Hotel La Réserve. The New York Watch Auction and Hong Kong Watch Auction bracket the calendar in October-December. Each major sale typically catalogues 200-300 lots; preview tours run through Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, New York, and London in the 6 weeks before each Geneva sale. Phillips also handles the Only Watch charity auctions in selected years.
For collectors, Phillips Watches' editorial influence extends well beyond its own sale results. Its catalogues are studied by the watch press; its lot descriptions establish reference dating and condition criteria for vintage Patek, Rolex, AP, and others; and its auction floor talks (broadcast live on YouTube and watched by tens of thousands of collectors) have become the standard way watch knowledge is transmitted in the industry. Phillips has effectively professionalised the secondary market for vintage haute horlogerie, a role that 20 years ago was distributed across smaller auction houses and grey-market dealers.
Outside Phillips, the major rivals are Christie's Watches (Bacs' former employer, now under Rebecca Ross), Sotheby's Watches (Sam Hines led until 2024), and Antiquorum (Geneva-based, more vintage-focused). Phillips' commercial advantage is a smaller catalogue per sale combined with significantly higher per-lot results; its operational model is closer to Christie's Geneva 2008-2014 (the Bacs era) than to a typical large-volume auction house. The continuing Bacs influence is the single biggest reason Phillips holds the record-result mantle in modern watch auctions.
