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One of the World’s Rarest Watches Is Coming to Auction in May

A vanishingly rare yellow gold Patek Philippe Ref. 2523 with a polychrome enamel map of South America will lead Phillips’ Geneva Watch Auction: XXIII sale.

There are watches, and then there are watches. The 1953 Patek Philippe Ref. 2523 Heures Universelles belongs firmly to the second category, so exceptionally rare that its appearance at Phillips’ Geneva Watch Auction: XXIII this May should qualify as a horological event. The reference coming to auction is an 18k yellow gold example with a polychrome cloisonné enamel South America dial—one of only two known to exist in yellow gold and one of only three embellished with the polychrome enamel map of South America. It was last seen at auction in 1988, the only time this Ref. 2523 variant has come to the block, until now.

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