Watches

The most traditional sense

Box of treasures

Bigger is better?

The winner’s watch – named the Lange 1 Time Zone ‘Como Edition’ – was created specifically for the Villa d’Este Concorso, which this year is themed ‘Back to the future – the journey continues’. As such, only one is produced per year. It features an engraving of the Concorso’s coat of arms on the special white gold caseback, and the word ‘Como’ in the ring of cities on the dial to indicate Central European Time. It will be personally presented to the winner by Lange CEO Wilhelm Schmid. 

While Jack Heuer’s eponymous company was secretly developing the Calibre 11, the world’s first automatic chronograph movement, together with Breitling and Hamilton in the early 1960s, it secured a radical square case from an external supplier in order to one-up its competition.

Taking place on Sunday 15 May in Geneva, the Phillips Geneva Watch Auction Three features a diverse selection of superb watches, from hallowed Rolexes to a near-unobtainable Omega.