Inside the First Competition Between Historic, Vintage Timepieces

Want more insider watch coverage? Get Box + Papers, GQ's newsletter devoted to the watch world, sent to your inbox every Friday. Sign up here to get it free.In the automotive world, high-end cars have gone head-to-head since the early 1920s. Judges didn’t evaluate them based on their speed, though—in a Concours d’Élégance, the prize goes to the best-looking vehicles. The tradition continues today in picturesque sites around the world where collectors submit their often very high-end vintage, classic cars. Surprisingly, there has never been an event for vintage timepieces.Aurel Bacs, the famous auctioneer whose longstanding association with Phillips has shaped the watch collecting world, endeavored to change that. “It began with a meeting where I said, ‘I have a dream,’” he said in a press release. For the very first iteration of this competition, Bacs and Phillips partnered with Swiss heavyweight Vacheron Constantin. They expected to receive maybe 100 to 200 submissions, but the jury was forced to whittle down 550 of them to 34 finalist watches, whose owners were flown out from across the world for the Concours held at the Hôtel Président in Geneva.“It was the most beautiful evening in the field ever,” Bacs said. At the Hôtel Président, around 200 attendees gathered, along with a jury of 14 watch-industry experts including Bacs himself, Ben Clymer of Hodinkee, writer and historian Nick Foulkes, longtime watch journalist Roberta Naas, and others. Watches could only be submitted for consideration in one category (Chronographs, Métiers d’Art, Chronomètre Royal, Astronomical Complications, Multiple Complications, Design, and Chiming Mechanisms) and were judged based on nine criteria: authenticity, elegance, rarity, impact on the history of Vacheron Constantin and/or on watchmaking in general, provenance, technicality, métiers d’art (artistic crafts), state of preservation, and emotional dimension.The jurors deliberated over several hours until the winners of the seven categories and a Best of Show were finally selected. Following a cocktail reception, everyone gathered on the lower floor of the Hôtel Président to see the results from the watch world’s first Concours d'Élégance.ChronographsThe first category featured a smattering of some of the maison’s most important wristwatches, including a highly rare ref. 4072 in stainless steel from 1940. However, it was a yellow gold pocket-watch chronograph from 1929 that won the day. The result was such a surprise that the audience, intimately familiar with the historical importance of pocket watches, audibly gasped inside the room. It made me wonder if these old-fashioned timepieces could regain their lost position as the pinnacle of watch collecting. This piece certainly warranted the love it received: in excellent condition and featuring a white enamel dial with dual registers in an “up-down” configuration, it’s a beautiful timepiece.Métiers d’ArtThis category celebrates handcrafts such as enameling and gem-setting, and it featured a smattering of truly spectacular pieces—mostly sub-40mm wristwatches in precious metals with wild cloisonné or Grand Feu champlevé enamel dials depicting landmasses or animals.However, a stunning pocket watch set with blue sapphires throughout the bezel and Roman indices won out.When an older American gentleman stepped on stage to collect his prize, he explained to a stunned crowd that not only had his great-grandfather, Dr. Otto von Frangeš, been given the watch by His Majesty Alexander I of Yugoslavia, its original owner, but that he wore it while sitting in the motorcade during the king’s assassination in France in 1934. Otto’s middle son, Nikola, eventually smuggled the watch out of Yugoslavia by sewing it into the lining of his wife’s jacket as they fled the Iron Curtain in the late 1940s.Chronomètre RoyalIn 1907, Vacheron launched the Chronomètre Royal sub-brand, specifically built to endure a life sailing the seas. The model’s parts were anti-magnetic and resisted rusting. The dials were made out of enamel, which could also stand up to the moist atmosphere without rusting. Because they were critical to maritime navigation, timing precision was of the utmost importance, and models from this line frequently won observatory trials (which tested for a watch’s accuracy) that ran from the 1800s to the mid-1900s. Given all that information, the winner is a bit of a shocker: a ref. 2215 from 1976 that exemplifies the qualities of the line but modernizes them in many ways. It doesn’t even feature a full set of numerals, trading them out for a few diamond-set indices. In his acceptance speech, the owner said he wears it on the weekends with jeans.Astronomical ComplicationsThe Astronomical Complications category is dear to the heart of anyone who appreciates a good moonphase display and also includes timepieces equipped with a triple-calendar, a complete calendar, or a perpetual calendar. Though more modern pieces, such as a skeletonized QP wristwatch from 1987, made it to the final round, it was a wildly neat (and unique) platinum-cased “Cioccolatone” from 1957 that won out. Housed in a 34mm x 43mm rectangular case and equipped with a complete calendar, it’s owned by a dapper Italian collector, who beamed as he collected the prize with his grown son. This would not be this pair’s first time at the podium…Multiple ComplicationsThis is a loaded category for Vacheron, which famously makes the most complicated pocket watch and wristwatch in the world, with 57 and 41 complications, respectively. To be eligible in this category, watches were required to have at least two complications—child’s play for VC.Spanning everything from an enamel-dialed, minute-repeating, split-seconds chronograph pocket watch from 1901 to several Patrimony watches from the 1990s, the winner was the “Don Pancho.” Delivered in 1940, this diminutive yellow-gold timepiece with minute repeater, day, and retrograde date indications was once the world’s most complicated wristwatch. Double-signed by Brooking in Madrid, it sold for roughly $740,000 at auction back in 2019.DesignA more subjective category, perhaps, than the others, Design included watches “featuring Vacheron Constantin’s signature design, either in the case or through the time display.” One entrant, for example—a wild time-only ref. 4695 dress watch—featured incredibly intricate lugs and a Maltese Cross-type dial. But the winner was nothing short of revelatory. Once again owned by the aforementioned tall Italian gentleman, the possibly unique ref. 6213 is an automatic world timer from 1957 in yellow gold. Based upon Louis Cottier’s famous system, it is so rare that even Clymer admitted he had never heard of it before the competition. The owner’s son described his father returning home with it one day when he was a boy, excited beyond belief that he had finally tracked it down after years of searching.Chiming MechanismsThis category included pocket watches or wristwatches fitted with a minute repeater, quarter repeater, half-quarter repeater, or grand sonnerie—a mechanism that automatically strikes the hours and quarter-hours every 15 minutes. Incredibly, among the entrants was a red gold quarter-repeater pocket watch from the early 1820s with a stunning guilloché dial. However, the winner was another pocket watch dating to 1926 and cased in platinum. Its ultra-thin design, black Breguet numerals, Breguet blued steel handset, and simple silver dial belied the complex mechanism within. The visibly emotional American gentleman who owns it recalled how, as a boy, he would open a chest of drawers, remove his grandfather’s pocket watch, and listen to its minute repeater.Best of ShowA bonus category, Best of Show went to a truly spectacular wristwatch: a ref. 6448 in platinum with diamond-set indices. Seemingly a simple time-only dress watch, this tremendous piece—which was produced in just three examples in the early 1960s—boasts a hand-wound, 13-ligne minute-repeater movement. Housed in a brushed-finish case with incredible teardrop lugs, it’s the only known example in this metal, and it was notably the last minute-repeating reference produced by the brand for nearly 30 years.Nominally, the crowd at the awards ceremony was there to judge the merits of a watch, but I left emotionally moved by the stories each watch owner shared about their timepieces. As the very first concours for watches, the format will no doubt be repeated in the future—either by Vacheron, adopted by other brands, or done as a more traditional multi-brand event like the Concours d’Élégance at Pebble Beach.