From a Richard Mille ‘Homage to Boucheron’ to a Rolex Daytona with Hollywood provenance: rare watches coming to Geneva

A Patek Philippe gold ‘Ricochet’ pocket watch

In 1961, Patek Philippe released arguably its most avant-garde design: the ref. 788-1J, also known as the ‘Ricochet’.

A keyless pocket watch measuring only 44 millimetres across, it was produced in five distinct series across five years — each reference with a different textured surface. Only available in yellow gold, the total production numbered fewer than 100 pieces. This example, with intricately chased lines that resemble sunbeams, is one of only 20 of the ref. 788-1 ever made.

The audacious design was the work of Gilbert Albert. Born in Geneva in 1930, he attended the city’s Ecole des Arts Industriels to study jewellery design, before joining Patek Philippe as a workshop manager in 1955. During the seven years he worked for the manufacturer, he came up with many of its most radical, often asymmetrical watches, of which the Ricochet is his best known. Its appearance was inspired by his love of nature, the dawn of space exploration, and a passion for modern artists including Brancusi and Mondrian.

Albert’s rise in the industry was meteoric: beginning in 1958, he won the Diamonds International Award an unprecedented three years in a row for his work at Philippe Patek, before leaving in 1962 to establish his own atelier. He would go on to win the award a further seven times.

‘This is a superb example of one of Albert’s most iconic designs,’ says Mathieu Ruffat, a senior specialist and head of sale at Christie’s Watches and Wristwatches department in Geneva. ‘His watches for Patek Philippe weren’t a huge commercial success at the time, but now they’re highly coveted among serious collectors.’

A Richard Mille ref. RM018 ‘Homage to Boucheron’

In 2008, watchmaker Richard Mille released a collaboration with Boucheron to celebrate the Parisian jeweller’s 150th anniversary. Together they created the ref. RM018, a manual-winding tourbillon with hours, minutes and a power reserve, which uses jewels in an extraordinary way.

Each watch has a different precious or semi-precious material incorporated into its complex movement. Production was limited to just 30 watches, and because of the project’s complexity, only five were made each year. Some have pieces of diamond, tiger’s eye, jasper or onyx inside, transforming a material normally used for ornamentation into an integral part of the watch’s mechanics.

This example, with a fluted case that recalls Boucheron’s iconic Reflet watch first created in 1947, has a mother-of-pearl gear train, which glistens against the white gold case’s skeletonised architecture.

‘The “Hommage à Boucheron” is typical of Richard Mille’s groundbreaking technical achievements, while also incorporating high-end jewellery craftsmanship,’ says Ruffat. ‘This model was also the first to feature a movement built with sapphire crystal plates, paving the way for the renowned RM056 and RM56-01 models, which would come to define the brand’s mastery of transparent watchmaking.’

A co-signed Tiffany & Co. Rolex Daytona with Hollywood provenance

The Rolex ref. 6262 was produced during a very short window, between 1970 and 1972, making it one of the scarcest ‘pump-pusher’ vintage Daytona models in existence. This stainless-steel example, made around 1970, is one of fewer than five from that reference thought to exist today with a dial co-signed by the jeweller Tiffany & Co.

It was purchased from Tiffany & Co.’s Beverly Hills boutique by George Peppard, the Hollywood actor who became a household name after playing Paul Varjak opposite Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly in the iconic film Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Not long after Peppard purchased the watch — similar to the stainless-steel Daytona he wore every day and in some of his movies — he had the case-back engraved ‘Brad Peppard December 1972 Love Dad’. Bradford was his first child, and he gifted him the watch on Christmas Day 1972. It’s been in his possession ever since.

During the 1980s, George Peppard returned to fame as Col. John ‘Hannibal’ Smith, the cigar-smoking leader of a renegade commando squad in the hit TV show The A-Team. ‘When I think of my father, I always imagine him wearing his Rolex. It was simply a part of him,’ says Bradford Peppard. ‘So you can well imagine my delight, my amazement, when Christmas of 1972 I found exactly the same watch he loved waiting for me under the Christmas tree.’

‘To find a Tiffany & Co. co-signed Daytona is rare. To find it on the dial of a stainless-steel ref. 6262 is incredible. To have that watch appear on the market for the first time, after spending more than half a century in the collection of the son of the actor who starred in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is legendary,’ says Ruffat.

Four special-edition Patek Philippe watches made for the Geneva flagship relaunch

In November 2006, Patek Philippe opened the doors to its new Geneva salon. Housed in the same building on Rue du Rhône that the company has occupied since 1853, it took the form of a six-storey temple to the art of horology, including salerooms, several exhibition spaces, and even a specially designed scent inspired by timekeeping. Production had relocated to a state-of-the-art facility at Plan-les-Ouates, just outside the city, a decade earlier.

To mark the reopening of its flagship, Patek Philippe released four special-edition ref. 3970 watches in unique designs: rose gold with a white dial, white gold with a black dial, yellow gold with a champagne dial and platinum with a salmon dial.

The ref. 3970 is a perpetual calendar chronograph — arguably the brand’s most celebrated complication, which it was the first to master in 1941. Released in 1986 as the successor to the ref. 2499, this model was produced in four variations until 2004.

In 2006, Patek Philippe quietly reissued the reference for this set. It’s thought that the company only produced as few as four of them, offered privately to its most loyal customers.

‘Incredibly, these watches are all still double-sealed, meaning each one is still inside its factory-sealed plastic bag and outer cardboard box. They also have the certificate of origin, signed by the company’s former president, Philippe Stern,’ says Ruffat. ‘It’s the first time a set in this condition has ever come to auction. These are real grail pieces for some collectors.’

A Ludovic Ballouard platinum ‘Upside Down’ watch

Born in Brittany in 1971, Ludovic Ballouard initially worked in aeronautics before becoming a watchmaker in Geneva. After stints at Franck Muller, Vacheron Constantin and F.P. Journe, he established his own atelier, unveiling its first creation in 2009: the ‘Upside Down’ watch.

The imaginative design presents the dial’s numbers upside down, except for the present hour, which is flipped the right way up — an idea that, according to Ballouard, should encourage its wearers to live in the moment. The highly complex manual-winding jump-hour mechanism behind it was developed in just one year. Patented by Ballouard, it helped cement his reputation as one of the most respected independent watchmakers of our time.

This Upside Down model was sold in 2024 and comes from a limited edition of just seven pieces. It has a platinum case, Hindu-Arabic numerals and an eye-catching dial: crafted from a piece of Henbury meteorite, it has a shimmering natural crystalline pattern, which is unique to every slice.

The Henbury meteor crashed into the desert in central Australia at 40,000 kilometres per hour some 4,700 years ago, creating a dozen impact craters. Several tonnes of iron-nickel fragments have been recovered from the site, which are believed to have originated from the cores of ancient asteroids.

‘The case-back of this watch, which is the highly desirable number one from the series of seven, is engraved with the name of the meteorite, although it’s been misspelled as “Heneury”, instead of Henbury,’ says Ruffat. ‘While this detail highlights the hand-finished nature of Ballouard’s watches, typographical errors can also be particularly collectable among those after something truly unique.’

Today, Ballouard’s watches are made in the village of Avusy, just outside Geneva, in a former post office, where he works with two assistants to produce around 35 watches a year.

The Rare Watches sale takes place on 10 November 2025 at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues in Geneva. Watches Online: The Geneva Edit will be live for bidding 12-19 November