In the year 2000, the Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe introduced the Star Caliber 2000 — a double-sided pocket watch with 1,118 parts and featuring 21 complications that was produced in sets of four.
The timepiece, intended to mark the new millennium, belonged to an exclusive collection of what Patek has called “supercomplications” that it manufactured in the 1920s, when collectors such as Henry Graves and James Packard commissioned evermore complicated timepieces from the brand.
On Dec. 5, a complete set of the Star Caliber 2000, each one in a different precious metal, is scheduled to be auctioned by Sotheby’s in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, with its estimated sale price listed as more than $10 million.
When the Star Caliber was released, watch collecting was still a relatively rare hobby (Sotheby’s global watch sales that year totaled $26.8 million, compared with $158.3 million in 2024).
While Patek Philippe said five sets were made, four in mixed metals and one all in platinum with different engravings, much about the Star Caliber’s production has remained a mystery.
Sam Hines, the global chairman of watches at Sotheby’s, said in a recent interview that the research and development of the timepiece took about 10 years.
He added that Philippe Stern, Patek’s president at the time, saw the Star Caliber as a way to flex the brand’s horological muscles and to create a grand complication that was, as the Sotheby’s executive noted, “easy-to-use, with complications that govern our everyday lives, like the time of Easter, sunrise and sunset.”
John Reardon, an expert in vintage Patek Philippe models and the founder of the online education and sales platform Collectability, said in an email that when it came to the Star Caliber, “it’s all about mechanical supremacy and no other maker could dare to compare at the time.”
The watch, which is 73.22 millimeters in diameter, or about the size of a baseball, has six patented features, including a mechanism that strikes two identical tones in immediate succession, so it correctly plays the Westminster Chimes, the four-note sound of Big Ben’s bells.
Mr. Hines noted that the timepiece, and the pioneering research that went into the development of its sky chart, “laid the groundwork for important wristwatches that came after, like the Sky Moon Tourbillon Ref. 5002 and the Grand Complications Celestial Ref. 6102.”
The December auction would be the first public sale of a full set; a single yellow-gold watch was sold by Christie’s in 2012.
The consignor whose pieces are being offered also has listed such important pieces as the 31.86-carat Desert Rose, which Sotheby’s said was the largest fancy vivid orange-pink diamond ever graded, and a rare Rolex Oyster Albino Daytona Ref. 6263.
Sotheby’s has never held an auction in Abu Dhabi, but Mr. Hines said the choice was meant to acknowledge its newest partner, ADQ, a local investment and holding company that late last year announced a minority equity investment in Sotheby’s. It also was intended to emphasize the region’s rising prominence in the watch world, he added.
“China was our biggest market for watches for many years, but that’s shifted now,” Mr. Hines said. “We’re seeing new buyers from the Middle East, in places like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman. The region is providing a lot of the growth in the world of watches.”
Whether the next owner of the Star Caliber 2000 set comes from the area, however, is anyone’s guess.
“The thing about our business at $10 million is the air is thinner up there,” Mr. Hines said. “It’s really the very top of the tree of watch collecting.”
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