Watches are arguably the perfect collectible: they satisfy the same urge to understand mechanical things that characterises car collecting, but they don’t require a cavernous garage; they have all the aesthetic variety of a collection of paintings but you don’t need the wall space; they brim with the sort of forensically tiny differentiating details that raise philatelists to boundless ecstasies but are not as geeky as stamps; and they have the element of personal ornament valued by collectors of vintage couture, Hermès handbags and jewellery.
The appeal of watch collecting is easy enough to comprehend. Why Patek Philippe occupies the position it does is less immediately apparent. There are older brands – its near neighbour Vacheron Constantin, for instance, has been around since 1755, 84 years longer than Patek. Even though Patek Philippe’s cofounder Jean Adrien Philippe was no horological slouch and is famed for his development of keyless winding, Abraham-Louis Breguet wa