Holocaust survivor turned Nazi hunter’s rare Patek Philippe watch that was one of two ever made sells for staggering £1.16m – triple its £420,000 valuation
- A rare watch of a former Nazi hunter sold for more than £1million at auction
- The Patek Philippe watch went for over double its valuation after a bidding war
- It was originally owned by Simon Wiesenthal who helped catch 1,100 Nazis
An incredibly rare watch that belonged to the prolific Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal sold for almost triple its valuation at a staggering £1.16million.
The Patek Philippe wristwatch – one of just two ever made – was originally owned by a Holocaust survivor who helped catch 1,100 Nazi war criminals, including Adolf Eichmann.
Wiesenthal, an architect before the war, acquired the watch soon after he was liberated from Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria in 1945.
After his death in 2005 the timepiece was bought by a leading European watch collector.
The stainless steel timepiece sparked a bidding war at Phillips auction house in Geneva, Switzerland.
Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal’s Patek Philippe wristwatch (pictured: Mr Wiesenthal wearing his watch) sold for £1.16million at an auction in Geneva, almost three times its £420,000 valuation
The wristwatch is one of only two made and thought to be around 80 years old, it boasts a number of rare features
It was valued at £420,000 but went for almost triple this sum including fees.
The timepiece is the rarest ever made by the Swiss watchmaker due to its black lacquered dial, teardrop lugs, and Brequet numerals, a limited edition font highly sought-after by collectors.
It is thought it was made some time between 1941 and 1944.
After surviving 13 different concentration camps Wiesenthal dedicated the rest of his life to tracking down fugitive Nazi war criminals.
These included Karl Silberbauer, the man who arrested Anne Frank.
In 1960 he helped the Israeli intelligence service identify the hiding place of Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Eichmann, one of the major architects of the Holocaust, was later tried and executed in Israel.
Wiesenthal was often pictured wearing the watch, including one of him at his desk.
His original alligator skin strap will also be sold alongside the watch, although export restrictions meant it could not be sent to the auction house in Geneva.
Wiesenthal bought the watch soon after he was liberated from Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria in 1945, it was then bought by a leading European watch collector in 2005 after his death
A close up of the watch highlights its black lacquered dial, teardrop lugs, and Brequet numerals
Alexandre Ghotbi, specialist in watches at Phillips, said: ‘The Wiesenthal watch is a treasure trove of history, rarity, and condition.
‘From a purely technical point of view, it is the rarest ever produced by Patek Phillipe. It is one of the very few designs to incorporate flamboyant teardrop lugs and one of just two examples made with black lacquered dials and Brequet numerals.
‘This compounds the remarkable rarity of the design, which was made for just four years between 1941 and 1944.
‘Then there is the watch’s extraordinary provenance. Simon Wiesenthal is one of the most well renowned peace activists of the 20th century and one of the foremost Nazi hunters. He was relentless in helping bring to justice more than a thousand war criminals.
‘The watch is a symbol of justice, perseverance and resistance to oppression – imagine if one of Gandhi’s watches came to auction. That is the level of significance that we are talking about.’
Simon Wiesenthal was studying architecture in Lviv, Ukraine, at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.
After Nazi Germany invaded in June 1941, he was transported to concentration camps including Buchenwald and Mauthhausen where he was liberated by Allied troops.
He died in Vienna in 2005 aged 96.
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