Legendary musician Eric Clapton is selling a rare platinum-cased Patek Philippe, one of only two ever made in platinum, and the only one in private hands. The other example resides in the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva, making this sale extremely special: this watch could fetch more than $4 million. The official Christie's estimate for Clapton's Patek is 2.5 million-4.0 million Swiss francs, or about $2.6 million-$4.25 million at current exchange rates. A rose gold version of the same watch sold at auction earlier this year for $2.8 million.
Clapton is a renowned watch collector, who even released a greatest hits album called "Timepieces." Only 349 watches of this make and model were ever released, and the two versions cased in platinum were most likely never originally intended for public sale. Clapton's watch entered the market in 1989, when it was consigned to the historical "The Art of Patek Philippe" auction and sold to a prominent European collector, who sold it to another buyer before it was purchased by Clapton.
