The timeless timepiece

"This watch is presented by Jamsetjee N. Tata to James Morris Esq M.I.C.E, the architect of Esplanade House Bombay in recognition of his professional skill and of the care and attention devoted by him during its construction 1890,” read the engraving on the back of the Patek Philippe watch that was sold for HK$ 562,500 (Rs 46,46,250) at an auction in Hong Kong on November 28, 2017. Against an estimated price of HK$ 80,000 to 160,000 (Rs 6,40,000 to 12,80,000), the auction conducted by Phillips, the Hong Kong based global platform for buying and selling 20th and 21st century art and design, fetched seven times the value after 10 minutes of bidding between a room bidder and a phone bidder, with the phone bidder emerging as the winner, it was reported on WatchTime India.

Patek Philippe watch gifted by Jamsetjee Tata, auctioned in Hong Kong

The 18k, pink gold, five-minute repeating chronograph hunter case presentation watch, manufactured in 1876, admeasures 53 mm in diameter, as per the details listed on the Phillips website. "A repeater is a complication in a mechanical watch that chimes the time on demand by activating a slide piece... Over 100 unique components must be combined to create a five-minute repeating mechanism, with each component manufactured to extremely exact tolerances,” explained Thomas Perazzi of Phillips.
As detailed in the Phillips catalog, the gift to Morris was in recognition of the architect creating "one of the first homes in the country to feature electricity as well as elevators. Complete with a portico for carriages, expansive inner courtyard and impressive library, Esplanade House was worthy of India’s first captain of industry…
"Patek Philippe watches appear to have been a favored gift of Tata for significant people, unsurprising given that considerable effort was required to acquire such timepieces as they had to be imported to colonial India from Switzerland via England. Near the end of his life Tata bequeathed a Patek Philippe pocket watch to his first cousin Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (J. R. D. Tata’s father), one of his successors at the Tata company. Literature shows that Tata presented the watch along with some pithy advice: ‘Make Tatas grow, or at least not lose what has been gained.’”