WHEN A WATCH HAS SEEN MORE OF LIFE THAN YOU EVER WILL
Once upon a time there was an object so unassuming in appearance a dial, two hands, a crown that would nonetheless travel through four decades of drama, theft, bankruptcy, and Swiss courtrooms with more plot twists than a badly-paced Netflix series. Buckle up, this one starts strong.
Act I: Love, Autumn, and a Rather Generous Gift Budget
October 9, 1980. John Lennon turns forty. Yoko Ono, a woman who never does things by halves, decides a “World’s Best Dad” mug won’t cut it. She goes all in: a gold Patek Philippe 2499, signed Tiffany & Co., engraved with a message so romantic you’d almost forgive the price tag. A promise of rebirth, a fresh start, the whole nine yards. Lovely intention. Fate, unfortunately, had other plans and not particularly nice ones.
Act II: The Plot Twist Nobody Ordered
Two months later, on December 8th, everything stops in front of the Dakota Building. The watch, meanwhile, carries on its merry way in the pocket of someone who was decidedly not part of the original plan. A chauffeur, vanished overnight with bags packed and, crucially, the watch. Yoko Ono doesn’t even notice right away. You can picture the scene: “Yoko, have you seen my watch?” “What watch?” Awkward.
Act III: Forty-Four Years of Radio Silence
The watch evaporates like some kind of horological Atlantis. No news, no ransom note, nothing. Just silence. Until it resurfaces of course it does in Berlin, amid the wreckage of a bankrupt auction house, tangled up with eighty-five other relics supposedly belonging to a certain Erhan G., who swears he bought it from a dealer. (You can already tell this gentleman is about to become a footnote in this story, and he has no idea yet.)
Act IV: The Supreme Irony
The watch then lands in the hands of an Italian collector based in Hong Kong — a man who, to top it all off, prefers the Rolling Stones to the Beatles. He knows absolutely nothing about the tragic history he’s just acquired. He brings it to Christie’s for authentication, planning to sell it on quietly. Monumental mistake. The experts read the engraving, go pale, and unwittingly kick off one of the finest legal psychodramas in modern watchmaking.
Act V: Welcome to Geneva, City of Watches and Never-Ending Lawsuits
Starting in 2018, our collector who stubbornly refuses to let it go drags the matter before Swiss justice. 2022: Yoko Ono wins at first instance. 2023: she wins again on appeal. But our tragic hero persists, taking it all the way to the Federal Supreme Court, the highest court in the land of chocolate and bank vaults. Final verdict, November 14, 2024: nothing more to see here, folks. The judges rule with unshakeable logic no, you do not give your chauffeur a watch engraved with a posthumous love note to John Lennon. That’s neither a tip nor a parting gift.
Epilogue: The Price of the Legend
Bought for $25,000 in 1980, the watch now sits at around $4.5 million, with some suggesting it could fetch as much as $11 million at auction. But let’s be honest: its real value lies in the absurd, tragic epic it lived through theft, exile, bankruptcy, a fateful authentication, and a six-year legal battle. One of only a few hundred ever made, it became, against its will, a silent witness to one of the great tragedies of the 20th century.
Moral of the story: never lose a watch engraved with a love note. It always ends up before the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.