Player supercomplication resonated deeply, and finding it teetered toward an obsession.īut my search for the pocket watch didn’t pick up until I got a pivotal clue. And when I first strapped on my late grandfather’s gold watch, I felt the thrill of an heirloom that could bind generations. I became fascinated by the idea that something powered by gears, wheels, levers and springs could bring order to the ephemeral passage of time. Back then it was a simple pleasure, but as I got older, my interest deepened. I’ve been intrigued by horology - the study of the measurement of time - ever since I was a little kid with a replica Dick Tracy wristwatch (no, the two-way radio didn’t work). “The watch was, and remains, a hugely important part of our cultural heritage,” said watchmaker Robert Loomes, technical director of Loomes & Co. And while it’s a safe bet that it would be worth millions, its value as a symbol of Great Britain’s watchmaking tradition transcends dollars and cents. Player pocket watch can claim a record too: It is the most complicated timepiece ever made by a British watchmaker, experts said. It sold at auction for $24 million in 2014, then a record. in 1933, the pocket watch included 24 complications - industry jargon for functions - and was for decades touted as the most complex timepiece ever made. Made by Patek Philippe for banker Henry Graves Jr. There was widely considered to be a winner: the Graves supercomplication. They commissioned increasingly elaborate examples, and it became a competition of sorts. Player pocket watch, called a supercomplication because of its many features, stands out for its audacious intricacy.Ĭomplex watchmaking - once the province of kings and queens - captivated early 20th century American industrialists, who were then emerging as the country’s version of royalty.

So is a 19th century Breguet created for a Neapolitan queen that is thought to be the first wristwatch ever made. The Omega Speedmaster that Buzz Aldrin wore on the moon is lost. Player watch is not the only important timepiece to vanish.

The effort plunged me into the baroque world of high-end antiquities, where a strange globe-spanning story entangled the estate of a La Jolla aviation mogul, an accountant from England, an Italian auctioneer, a watch-collecting Middle Eastern sultan and the archduke of Austria. Then, in the mid-1970s, the pocket watch disappeared, spawning an enduring mystery. The banking magnate’s death is said to have touched off a long, peripatetic journey for the timepiece, which eventually found its way into the hands of an enigmatic antiquities dealer in New York. Just a few years after the watch’s completion, Morgan died in 1913 at the age of 75. It cost 1,000 pounds - or about $5,000 at the time - and took four years to make. Player & Son to create the timepiece, people familiar with the watch have asserted over the decades. Impressive as its features were, the 1.75-pound watch may be just as notable for whom it was believed to be made: John Pierpont Morgan.Īround 1905, the Gilded Age tycoon commissioned the English firm J.

Ephemeral emporium crossword clue