Just when you think you’ve seen everything the vintage watch market has to offer, an outrageously rare collection emerges to completely knock your socks off. In December, Sotheby’s will be bringing the lifetime collecting work of a man named Robert M. Olmstead to auction—and the horological implications are significant.
Olmstead, remembered as a humble man with a deep love and fascination for horology, began collecting pocket watches and clocks while an undergrad at Princeton in the 1960s. Focusing on marques such as Breguet, Dent, Charles Frodsham, and others, he quickly amassed a significant watch-roll full of late-19th and early-20th century pieces. By the time he passed away last December, these numbered over 80, many of which were unknown to the market. Perhaps most notably to collectors, among his treasure trove of rare and valuable pieces are several complicated wares from none other than Patek Philippe.
The first of these is a remarkable split-seconds pocket watch produced by the brand for the American chemist, industrialist, politician, and philanthropist John Motley Morehead III in 1924. Previously unknown to collectors, it was purchased by Olmstead in 1965 through New York dealer Ephraim Greenberg, making Olmstead just its second owner. Inside are two movements, each of which is wound simultaneously in opposing directions by the crown. It’s theorized that Moorehead, who founded the eponymous Morehead Planetarium and Science Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, used one movement to track sidereal time, which measures the Earth’s rotation relative not to the Sun, but to fixed stars. One of only two watches from any brand known to the market to feature dual movements, it carries an estimate of $500,000-$1 million. (The other watch—no less beautiful but not featuring a split-seconds complication—is also part of the collection and carries an estimate of $300,000-$500,000.)
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No less significant is a paper weight clock produced by Patek Philippe in circa 1927 featuring numerous calendar and other complications. Carrying movement number 198.159, it’s one of just three examples known, the other two having been made for James Ward Packard and Henry Graves Jr.—an automotive industrialist and a banker, respectively, whose competitive collecting exploits are well known in horological circles. Originally commissioned by American collector Thomas Emery, the clock was acquired by Olmstead in 1976 and remained undocumented to all but the maison until now. In a pure coincidence, Olmstead’s death—and the collection’s sale—coincide with Patek Philippe’s introduction of a modern take on this clock at Watches and Wonders Geneva 2025. Produced in a limited run of just 25 units, each sold immediately for a cool $1.25 million each.
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Beyond the aforementioned treasures from Patek, Olmstead’s remarkable collection also boasts complicated pieces from some of the most notable names in English watchmaking, such as Charles Frodsham and Dent. Before Switzerland rose to its current position as horological Supreme Leader, it was the British who carried this torch—indeed, a quick perusal of the incredible Dent carriage clock from 1857 (est. $50,000-$70,000) and mind-blowingly complicated pocket watch from Charles Frodsham (est. $300,000-$500,000) in Olmstead’s collection is enough to give a picture just how incredible the London watchmaking scene was prior to the Second World War.
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Hitting the auction block at Sotheby’s Important Watches on December 8 and Fine Watches between November 26 to December 10, the Olmstead collection will be on global tour with stops in Hong Kong, London, and Geneva and on public display at the Breuer Building in New York from December 5 to 7. Curated by Daryn Schnipper, the chairman emeritus of Sotheby’s international watch division, the collection is essential viewing for any serious scholar of vintage watches and clocks. Beyond that, it’s proof that the ads were correct: You really never do own a Patek Phillipe—you merely look after it for the next generation.
