Tag: George Daniels

Moon Watch: Stellar price for George Daniels Apollo 11 tribute timepiece

George Daniels (1926-2011), one of the foremost pocket watch creators of his era, was so taken by the historic nature of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing that it inspired him to fashion his own inimitable tribute to the men and the mission – the 1982 Space Traveller. Designed to meet every need of even the most demanding deep-space explorer, its intricate mechanism simultaneously indicates both mean-solar time and sidereal time.

1982 Space Traveller crafted by George Daniels

As this cosmically-inspired chronogram was sold almost as soon as it was completed (and was only to be seen again in public more than 30 years later), Daniels so regretted the impetuosity of the transaction that he immediately set about creating the Space Traveller II, which remained his personal watch the rest of his life.

1982 Space Traveller by George Daniels is the most expensive British watch ever sold

One of just 23 pocket watches to have been handcrafted by Daniels, the Space Traveller’s unique provenance recently saw sell it for US$4.56 million, making it the most expensive English watch ever sold at auction, as well as the highest price commanded by a single watch this year to date.

George Daniels Prime Pocket Watch Headlines Auction

While ‘modern pocket watch’ may seem somewhat oxymoronic in terminology terms, a particularly prized example of just such a haute horological highlight – a George Daniels Grand Complication pocket watch – stunned industry insiders recently when it sold for a staggering US$2.4 million, an all-time high among the specially-sourced lots going under the gavel in Geneva this season.

George Daniels

While many may not be familiar with the name ‘George Daniels’, he is an English horologist of a 1926-2011 vintage and oft considered one of the greatest watchmakers of his generation. His chief claim to fame lies in his invention of the co-axial escapement, a monumentally innovative mechanism that continually keeps precise time without the watch’s movement requiring any conducive lubrication.

This particular pocket watch, created at the height of the ’70s Quartz Crisis, features that very mechanism, as well as Daniels’ first-ever instantaneous perpetual calendar, a retrograde date, a minute repeater, a thermometer, an equation of time and a power reserve indicator.

George Daniels

Obviously only too aware of its value, Alexandre Ghotbi, head of sales for Phillips Geneva, described this unique statement timepiece as “the greatest horological invention of the last 200 years.” And he should know.