From Patek Philippe to Audemars Piguet, Breguet and Jacob & Co, these are the priciest watches of the year.
So far in 2024, we’ve looked at the most expensive beach-ready watches, the priciest travel watches, the best sports watches, dress watches, chronographs, tourbillons, and even just the best watches. We saw some big price tags in there—some over seven figures—so we began to wonder what the most expensive watches of 2024 were so far.
At the most rarefied end of the watchmaking spectrum, a number of metrics can help determine the significance of a timepiece: The greater the number of components, the more complex a watch is, and, by most measures, the more impressive. A surfeit of exquisite details, both visible to the naked eye and hidden from sight, is evidence of superb craftsmanship. And a case of precious metal studded with gems makes for an obvious display of wealth. But the easiest way to understand the value of a luxury wristwatch? Simply look at the price tag.
Patek Philippe and Breguet each make the list twice, which maybe isn’t a big surprise, but the gem-set watches from Audemars Piguet, Jacob & Co. and Chopard also shoot the prices skyward.
We’ve rounded up 10 of the year’s most expensive watch introductions. Are they the priciest models unveiled this year? We think so. But as the saying goes, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.
Patek Philippe Ref. 5160/500R Retrograde Perpetual Calendar
For all the hoopla over Patek Philippe’s steel sport watches, the brand is at its best producing rare handcrafts timepieces, like this retrograde perpetual calendar introduced in April at Watches and Wonders Geneva. Housed in a new 38 mm rose gold hand-engraved officer’s style case with a hinged cover, the model is a showcase for both artisanry and heritage: The hand-engraved decoration—on the center of the silvery opaline dial, the bezel, case, crown, hinged cover and lugs—features volutes and foliage inspired by a pocket watch from the Patek Philippe Museum. So impressive is the decoration that the watch’s self-winding retrograde movement is but an afterthought.
Avi & Co. Hue
It’s rare but not impossible to find a watch fully flooded with white diamonds (just look to the blinding Chopard model that appears later in this story). But a watch paved entirely with pink sapphires? That’s a downright unicorn. Behold the new Hue by Avi & Co., part of the Iced collection by New York City retailer Avi & Co., which has lavished this 44 mm white gold model with 495 brilliant-cut natural pink sapphires meticulously arranged to catch the light from every angle. It’s Barbie time!
Patek Philippe Ref. 5520RG Alarm Travel Time
Despite its highly functional grand complication movement, Patek’s new Alarm Travel Time watch—with its exclusive dual-time display (with date indexed to local time) and 24-hour alarm mechanism featuring a hammer striking a classic gong—is not, by virtue of its rarity (not to mention its price), your everyday beater. The model’s new two-tone execution—note the rose gold case and contrasting white gold pusher tubes and sunburst gray dial—makes it the perfect wristwatch for the gentleman traveler.
Hublot MP-10 Tourbillon Weight Energy System Titanium
Released in January during LVMH Watch Week, the newest MP model from Hublot, the MP-10 Tourbillon Weight Energy System, is a study in avant-garde watchmaking. Lacking a dial, hands and oscillating weight (the caliber and dial are fused), the watch looks every bit as radical as it functions. With 592 components, the movement required five years of R&D. Four rotating displays replace the hands. The hours and minutes are displayed in the upper third of the dial, the circular power reserve in the central third and the seconds in the lower third, directly on the tourbillon cage, which sits inclined at 35° in order to optimize visibility for the wearer.
Breguet Classique Double Tourbillon ‘Quai de l’Horloge’ 5345BR
On June 26, 1801, Abraham-Louis Breguet invented the tourbillon. To honor that milestone, the brand that bears his name dropped a 46 mm rose gold wristwatch equipped with not one, but two of the whirling mechanisms. But the horological dance visible on the dial tells only part of the story. A bevy of artisanal techniques on the 588N2 movement (740 components in all!) reflect more than 250 years of watchmaking heritage. They include an entirely new guilloché pattern reminiscent of sound waves applied to the rose gold rotating mainplate and to the rhodium-plated gold bridge below it. There’s also an engraving on the back of the movement that depicts an aerial view of Abraham-Louis Breguet’s workshop at 39 Quai de l’Horloge in Paris and hand-chamfered details that speak to the brand’s obsessive approach to finishing. All in service of a device that lost its usefulness about a century ago, when the wristwatch supplanted the pocket watch, a development that, according to Breguet CEO Lionel a Marca, transformed the tourbillon into an object of horological beauty. “Observing a tourbillon in action is like watching a heartbeat,” he says. “What’s more, a timepiece is an object of desire and our aim is to continue to intrigue people as well as make them dream – isn’t that a nice challenge?” Indeed!
Breguet Classique Double Tourbillon Dragon 5345PT
You don’t have to be a Sinophile, or a devotee of the Chinese zodiac, to admire the Classique “Grande Complication” wristwatch Breguet introduced earlier this year to honor the year of the dragon. Much like its Quai de l’Horloge sibling, the model features twin rotating tourbillons with one key distinction: A hand-engraved rose gold dragon coils between them.
Chopard Alpine Eagle 41 XP Frozen Summit
At the top of the Alpine range from Chopard sits this 18k white gold model iced with 29.02 carats of baguette-cut diamonds. A brilliant example of Chopard’s expertise in stone-setting, the 41 mm model, encased in ethical 18k white gold, was designed to evoke the look of starlight reflected on a glacier. The Frozen Summit also boasts an ultra-thin L.U.C 96.41-L automatic movement certified by the Poinçon de Genève, the last word in exceptional watchmaking.
Richard Mille RM 27-05 Flying Tourbillon Rafael Nadal
Fourteen years after Richard Mille introduced the RM 027 Tourbillon as part of a quest to create a watch that was remarkably lightweight yet superlative in its performance, the brand has come out with a manual wind flying tourbillon named for longtime friend of the brand Rafael Nadal. Weighing a wispy 11.5 grams, the RM 27-05 can withstand a g-force of 14,000, earning it a reputation as the world’s lightest and most resilient mechanical tourbillon.
Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Selfwinding 41 mm Full Gemset
At the end of May, Audemars Piguet took the camo look to its natural conclusion when it introduced two fully paved 41 mm Royal Oak Selfinding models decked out in a gem-set camouflage pattern that extends from the dial to the case and bracelet. Composed of 861 baguette-cut gemstones in graduated shades of blue or in green, brown and black tones, the motif lends the brand’s most iconic model a wild, disco-infused sensibility. The blue version shown here features 44.32 cts. of graduated blue sapphires and Swiss blue topaz set in 18k white gold, while the second reference combines 39.91 cts. of black sapphires, saturated and light tsavorites, and smoky quartz to achieve a more traditional camo color scheme (also in 18k white gold). 1.26 million Swiss francs (about $1.45 million at time of publication).
The Ruby Billionaire III by Jacob & Co.
In 2016, Jacob & Co. introduced a one-of-one all-diamond watch called the Billionaire. The piece was so popular that it’s now in its third incarnation. Available, as of April, in three borderline-outrageous executions — rainbow gem, emerald and ruby — the piece proved so enticing that in May, Usher wore the ruby-clad version (boasting 714 natural, no-heat rubies for a total of 147.65 carats) to the Met Gala. $5 million
