Underscoring the value that timepieces by George Daniels can now make at auction Bonhams’ sale last week, on 16 June, saw a George Daniels Millennium wristwatch sell for £519,000, including buyer’s premium.
The achieved sale price set a new world auction record for a British-made wristwatch. Additionally, it was the highest value watch sold by Bonhams to date.
Dr George Daniels CBE, DSc, FSA, FBHI (1926 – 2011) was a highly renowned British watchmaker and horologist. A past Master of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, Daniels had his workshop on the Isle of Man. His timepieces have increasingly achieved tremendous interest at auction. Perhaps most famously in July 2019 at Sotheby’s ‘Masterworks of Time’ sale Daniels exceptional pocket watch named, ‘Space Traveller I’, (1982) sold for £3,615,000 including premium.
As Bonhams note about George Daniels:
‘Dr. George Daniels CBE (1926-2011) was a true horologist with a passion that overcame all the turmoil that befell the watch industry in the 1970’s. George came out of it a game changer, elder statesman, mentor to many influential watch producers and a national treasure’
The George Daniels Millennium wristwatch, from 1999
The Millennium wristwatch sold by Bonhams at their London ‘Fine Watches’ sale on 16 June 2021 was the 9th watch in a limited series of 48 watches produced in 18- carat yellow gold. Additionally, there are 7 Millennium wristwatches in 18-carat white gold.
The auction estimate for the watch was between £250,000 – £350,000 with the watch eventually selling for £519,000, including buyer’s premium.
Listed as Lot 45 in the sale the watch was described as ‘exceptional, fine and rare’. Made in 1999.
The watch has an automatic movement, with a ‘George Daniels’ Co-Axial escapement, glucydur balance and a gold engine turned rotor. Additionally, there is an engraved surround to the movement with foliage decoration. The dial is ‘engine turned’ with two cartouches, (scroll inscriptions), signed Daniels and London. There is an eccentric gold chapter ring with black Roman numerals, black outer minute markers and a gold subsidiary dial at 6 for calendar markers, plus gold Daniels hands. The case has a snap on exhibition back. The watch case diameter is 37mm. The watch was accompanied by a provenance letter dated 28th February 2014 and correspondence from George Daniels dated 1999 and 2007.
The actual story behind the Millennium wristwatch, (named for the year 2000), series is fascinating, and it also involves one Britain’s current foremost independent watchmakers Roger W Smith, OBE, FBHI.
Bonhams explains the story in their cataloguing of the watch:
‘Considered as one of the greatest watchmakers of the 20th Century, George struggled for more than two decades to persuade many of the Swiss watch brands that his revolutionary Co-Axial escapement – designed to run unaffected by the deterioration of its lubricant – was possibly the greatest advance in horology since Thomas Mudge invented the lever escapement over 250 years ago. Eventually, he was proved correct and Omega adopted the Co-Axial design introducing it into select models at the Basel Fair in 1999. To celebrate this monumental deal, George, along with his apprentice Roger Smith, set about creating the Millennium wristwatch series’
The Millennium wristwatch series was created over a period of 3 years and was the first collaboration between George Daniels and Roger Smith. They collaborated again in 2009 on their final joint project creating a wristwatch to mark the 35th anniversary of George Daniels’ invention of the Co-Axial escapement. For this special event, a series 35 wristwatches were made.
“We are thrilled with yesterday’s results, especially, of course with the George Daniels. Personally, seeing the Millennium project from its inception to this result, with new auction world records being broken, is a great pleasure and an indication of the strength of interest in world-class craftsmanship creating unusual and exceptional items. The breadth of the sale and the resulting sell-through rate also shows how strong the London watch market is.”
Jonathan Darracott, Bonhams Global Head of Watches
Note: In 2001, independent watchmaker Dr Roger W Smith OBE, FBHI set up his own workshop, Roger W. Smith Ltd, on the Isle of Man. Increasingly recognised for his own watchmaking in 2018 Roger Smith was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE), and an honorary Doctorate from Birmingham City University. His watches include the ‘Series 1’ wristwatch through to a ‘Series 5 Open Dial’, and ‘The Great Britain’ wristwatch.
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