Christie’s has announced “Passion for Time”, An Important Private Collection of Watches and Timepieces, the greatest Private Single Owner Collection to appear to market in recent history, accumulated by Mohammed Zaman over a forty year period.
Mohammed Zaman’s passion for watches began over forty years ago when he received two watches, one from his father and another from his uncle. Thereafter in 1978, in celebration of a successful business transaction, Mohammed Zaman purchased his very first Rolex Day-Date in Dubai.
The auction will take place in Geneva on 6 November. The key highlights of the sale are given below.
Rolex Ref. 1675 GMT Master
This Rolex GMT-Master Ref. 1675 was worn by Marlon Brando when playing Colonel Walter E. Kurtzin Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 classic “Apocalypse Now”. Marlon Brando ‘customised’ this piece by hand-engraving his name on the caseback.
Brando went a step further, by removing the bezel as well as the steel bracelet, which he replaced with a sober black strap, and pared down to essentials, allegorically mirrored the character of Kurtz.
Estimate: CHF 1,000,000-2,000,000.
Philippe Dufour Grande & Petite Sonnerie No. 1
Over two-and-half years in the making, Philippe Dufour’s Grande et Petite Sonnerie No. 1 marked a major milestone in the history of watchmaking.
Presented in Basel in 1992, it was the first time this spectacular minute repeater chiming complication had been incorporated into a wristwatch. The 39mm case, with a thickness of just 14mm is amplified by the sober and elegant aesthetic of the white enamel dial with sub-seconds.
One of the world’s finest and historically most significant complicated timepieces, it is also the first watch by Philippe Dufour as an independent watchmaker, catapulting him to the status of living legend. This piece is also No. 1 of only four examples made – each unique in yellow, pink, white gold and platinum, all with white enamel dials.
Estimate: CHF 4,000,000-6,000,000.
George Daniels Anniversary Platinum No. 00
Crafted by one of the greatest independent watchmakers, the George Daniels Anniversary No. 00 is first of its kind and one of only four to have been made in platinum.
The George Daniels Anniversary series commemorates the 35th anniversary of Daniels’s invention of the co-axial escapement. Profoundly influenced by 18th/19th century master watchmaker Abraham‐Louis Breguet, Daniels presented his ground-breaking co-axial escapement in 1975, redefining 21st-century horology.
Following its launch in 2010, 47 George Daniels Anniversary watches were to be made: 35 in yellow gold; four in white gold; four in rose gold; and four examples in platinum, among which “No. 00”, the very first of the series.
Estimate: CHF 1,200,000-2,400,000.
Rolex ‘Gordon Bethune’ Stelline Rose Gold Ref. 6062
Introduced at the Basel fair in 1950, the Rolex 6062 houses a complicated automatic triple calendar movement, featuring day, date and moon phases, fitted for the first time into the ‘screwback’ Oyster case.
Available in stainless steel, yellow gold or rose gold case, it also came with a variety of dial designs. The variant offered as part of this Collection, in rose gold, features a dial with eight stars as intermediary hour markers, earning it the sobriquet title Stelline – “little stars” in Italian – among collectors.
It is perhaps the scarcest and most sought-after model of all, because only two Rolex models, references 6062 and 8171, showcase a triple calendar alongside a moon phase complication. While the latter sports a snap-on caseback, the former is the screw-in (or ‘screwback’) type, ensuring its waterproofness.
This piece, one of the most immaculate and best-preserved 6062s to come to the market, was also once owned by Gordon Bethune, a globally recognised watch collector and the legendary CEO of Continental Airlines.
Estimate: CHF1,000,000-2,000,000
Touring dates of “Passion for Time”, An Important Private Collection of Watches and Timepieces:
Hong Kong: 4-7 October
New York: 14-18 October
Dubai: 14-19 October
