Who Will Buy Sylvester Stallone's £5m Patek Philippe Watch?

Want more watch coverage? Get About Time, Esquire’s free newsletter devoted to the watch world, in your inbox every Sunday. Sign up here

Sylvester Stallone has announced that 11 watches from his personal collection will form part of Sotheby’s Important Watches sale, taking place in New York next month.

The haul includes limited-edition and unique timepieces by Rolex, Audemars Piguet, Piaget and Cartier – plus a Panerai Luminor Submersible worn by Sly in the 2012 film The Expendables 2.

Patek Philippe ref. 6300G-010 Grandmaster Chime

The highlight of the sale, though, is undoubtedly Stallone’s Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime, one of the most complicated watches ever built, a model that has never appeared at auction before, and one that is being sold unworn and still sealed in its packaging.

The ref. 6300G-010 is nicknamed ‘The Ultimate Champion’ and has an estimate of $2.5/$5 million.

That may be low.

Pre-owned watch site Chrono24 is currently offering the same watch, minus the mint condition and the starry provenance, for almost £6.5m.

Outside horology circles, Stallone is of course famous for his enduring action movies, and Rocky.

Inside it, his love of horology is well-known.

He has long been associated with Panerai, makers of strapping dive watches – a personalised series from the mid-1990s known as Luminor Slytech even took his name.

The often-told story is that Stallone discovered Panerai by accident, finding the brand in a shop window in Rome while filming the 1996 movie Daylight.

He then suggested Panerai make a model for him to wear in the film.

Stallone’s endorsement helped make the military-spec watchmaker the aspirational brand it is today. The watches-in-a-shop-window story is one Stallone himself is fond of repeating – although not everyone is convinced it is totally kosher.

Either way, it scarcely detracts from Stallone’s evident passion for watches.

In 2020 he sold five timepieces at Phillips – four of them Richard Mille watches, including the one worn in 2014’s The Expendables 3, as well as the above-mentioned Daylight Panerai – for a total of $3.1 million

Patek Philippe Reference 57111300A-001 Nautilus

The new sale includes a gem-set sunburst-green dialled Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711, a model made available exclusively to VIP and ‘VVIP’ Patek clients, and only the second time an example of this watch has been made available on the open market. This one has an estimate of $200-$400,000.

Panerai ref. PAM00382 Luminor Submersible

There is also the Panerai Luminor Submersible, worn by Stallone during The Expendables 2. This limited edition was made in a run of 1,000 and was the first Panerai sports watch to be made entirely of bronze.

Patek Philippe ref. 6300G-010 Grandmaster Chime

Then there is ‘The Ultimate Champion’ – the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime, ref. 6300G-010. Launched to mark the watchmaker’s 175^th anniversary in 2014, its genesis came from Patek boss Thierry Stern’s instruction seven years earlier to come up with the most intricate model in the brand’s history.

The white gold reference, adorned with Patek’s signature hobnail pattern, features twenty complication, including five chiming modes, two of which were world firsts – an acoustic alarm that strikes out the preselected time, and a date repeater that sounds the date on demand. There are two dials that work independently from one another and a unique reversable case. The watch required seven patents and 100,000 hours to produce.

The two faces are there to 'ensure optimal legibility’ – one tells the time, the other is dedicated to the perpetual calendar functions.

Presented in its original single sealed casing, the Sotheby's lot is accompanied by a grand presentation box engraved with Stallone’s name, and a Grandmaster Chime book bearing his name on the cover.

The whole lot

Still trying to decide if it's for you?

The sale also includes a book, travel case, cufflinks, USB drive and an Apple iPad with a Patek Philippe leather case, adapter and charger – plus a set of AirPods, that also come with a Patek Philippe case.

Important Watches takes place on 5 June. More here