The Patek Philippe Henry Graves Jr. Supercomplication
Patek Philippe Henry Graves Jr. Supercomplication / Credit: Hodinkee
We all remember our first ‘real’ watch, but for some people it costs $24 million. That was the Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication, it’s certainly not in the affordable vintage category. But what about the man who bought the watch?
Who Was Henry Graves Jr.?
Henry Graves Jr. is the namesake of the $24 million watch, born in Orange, New Jersey in March 1868. His father was Henry Graves Sr., founder of investment bank Maxwell & Graves. Henry Graves Sr. moved to New York City in 1859 and founded his banking firm with Henry Maxwell in 1865. Maxwell was a wealthy banker from Scotland who even had a bronze statue of himself in Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. Henry Graves Jr. lived in New York City, where he also worked at Maxwell & Graves and was involved in the railroad business. Graves Jr. was married in 1896 and first started buying Patek Philippe in 1903, commissioning his first piece in 1910.
Henry Graves Jr.
He became an obsessive watch collector and eventually fell into competition with James Packard, another avid collector and well-known businessman. In 1925, Henry Graves Jr. commissioned the Supercomplication from Patek Philippe and paid a price of 60,000 Swiss francs. The watch was not only special for its complications like the moonphase, Westminster chimes, perpetual calendar, and double face – but more so for being designed uniquely for Graves Jr., who could enjoy the celestial chart on the watch that depicted the sky over Central Park as seen from his Fifth Avenue home. The Supercomplication was completed in 1932 and delivered on January 19th, 1933. It has 900 parts and is still considered by many to be the most complicated watch ever built without the aid of computers.
After Graves’ death in 1953, his family kept the watch for some time but eventually sold it in 1968 to The Time Museum in Rockford, Illinois. It was sold in 1999 to a member of the Qatari Royal family and sold again, mostly recently, for about $24 million at Sotheby’s Geneva in 2014.
By: Andres Ibarguen