Time Is Money: 10 Of The World’s Most Expensive Watches

By Joe Wertz

A good watch should long outlive its wearer. The great ones are still handmade today by skilled craftsmen who tame metal into precision tools that rival the most complicated machinery in the world.  Time may be precious, but is it priceless?   With these watches, you’d think so.  Here are the 10 most expensive watches in the world, many of which represent more money than a single person can expect to earn in their entire lifetime…

10 – $734,000 – Breguet pocket watch 1907BA/12

Built by the centuries-old watchmaker credited with creating a device to foil gravity, Breguet’s pocket piece is an 18-karat yellow-gold case with a hand-engraved movement and a two-way rotating crown. [pic via]

9 – $800,000 – Blancpain 1735, Grande Complication

Between the crocodile leather strap of the Blancpain 1735 lies 740 watch parts and a year in the live of a dedicated watchmaker. The watch has a platinum case and elements displaying a perpetual calendar, lunar phase and a split-second chronograph. [pic via]

8 – $860,000 – Louis Moinet Magistralis

Inside the Louis Moinet Magistralis rests a piece of a 2,000-year-old lunar meteorite. Outside, the 18-karat gold watch has a movement that displays a minute repeater, perpetual calendar and a push-button chronograph. [pic via]

7 – $1 million – Hublot Black Caviar Bang

Made from an 18-karat white-gold case packed with 322 diamonds, the Hublot Black Caviar is the most unassuming timepiece on our list. Still, diamonds are packed onto every spare square of space, including 179 crammed onto the bezel and 30 encrusted on the clasp. [pic via]

6 – $1.1 million – The Chopard Super Ice Cube

This Chopard has 66 carats worth of diamond-encrusted glory. It’s gaudy, ugly, square-faced and worth more than a million — just like Ice Cube. [pic via]

5 – $1.3 million – Patek Philippe Sky Moon Tourbillon

Patek Philippe. Get used to that name, you’ll be seeing it again. This rare timepiece has two faces and a reputation as being the watchmaker’s most complicated model. It has a perpetual calendar, retrograde date and lists the lunar phase. A flip of the watch reveals a celestial view detailing the sidereal time and a skychart that traces the stars and phase and orbit of the moon. [pic via]

4 – $1.5 million – Vacheron Constantin Tour de l’Ile

There are 834 parts inside the Vacheron Constain’s Tour de l’lle, a watch considered “the most complicated watch ever made” by some. The watch lists two time zones, gives the sunset time, has a perpetual calendar and an astronomical indicator of the night sky. [pic via]

3 – $4 million – Patek Philippe’s Platinum World Time

A $4 million auction bid made Patek Philippe’s Platinum World Time the most expensive watch in 2002. The self-winding watch displays each of the 24 time zones and is known for its readability, user friendliness and having separate and switchable night and day tones. [pic via]

2 – $11 million – Patek Phillipe’s Supercomplication

Patek Philippe’s supercomplicated creation is also super expensive. The famed watchmaker finished the timepiece in 1932, a four year-long commission to create a watch for Henry Graves Jr., who had waged watch-war with James Ward Packard. The yellow-gold watch has two faces and 24 complications and was bought at a Sotheby’s auction for a little over $11 million. [pic via]

1 – $25 million – 201-carat Chopard

The watch face is somewhere there in the middle, surrounded by 201 carats. This watch-bracelet comes with a trio of heart-shaped diamonds: A 15-carat pink diamond, 12-carat blue diamond and an 11-carat white diamond, all of which open when a spring-loaded mechanism. More than 600 yellow diamonds are sprinkled alongside 91 or so colorless diamonds. [pic via]

Thanks for reading, StyleCravers, Diggers, Stumblers and more.  So what do you think?  A little outrageous, huh?  Do you feel that some of these fine watches justify their price?  Let us know in the comments, we’d love to know your take on this