The Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication has been sold! As we’ve previously covered, the Graves Supercomplication is a pocket watch commissioned in 1925 by Henry Graves Jr, a New York banker, as part of a watch arms race with James Ward Packard, an automobile manufacturer. The watch was finally delivered in 1933, after Patek Philippe finished it sometime in 1932. Weighing over a pound and housing 24 complications, this watch was only surpassed as the most complicated watch ever built 56 years later, again by Patek Philippe.

The Graves Supercomplication was sold at Sotheby’s Important Watches auction in Geneva on 11 November, with a hammer price of 20.6 million CHF, up from the initial estimate of 15 million CHF. The final price (which includes the buyer’s premium) comes up to 23.237 million CHF. This breaks the watch’s own record as the most expensive watch ever sold, with the previous high of US$11 million set in 1999. The watch was sold to Aurel Bacs, formerly the head of watches at Christie’s, and currently an auctioneer/consultant.