We often poke fun at the excess of people who spend hundreds of millions of rands on homes, or jets, or boats, but it’s not our money to spend.

I would do things a little differently but to each their own.

That being said, I find it just a touch odd that somebody would be willing to spend 31 million Swiss Francs (around $31 million, or R465 million) on a single watch.

The one-of-a-kind Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime Ref. 6300A nailed the record for world’s most expensive wristwatch when it was sold over the weekend at Only Watch, a charity auction held in Geneva to which top watch brands donate special editions.

At least it was for charity.

The previous record for most expensive wristwatch was just shy of $18 million, set in 2017, and the most expensive pocket watch was also a Patek Phillipe, sold for $24 million at a Sotheby’s auction in 2014.

Reporting by Forbes:

The Grandmaster Chime reference 6300A-010 was created specially for Only Watch, and it is the only one that will ever be made in stainless steel. It has four spring barrels driving 20 complications, including a grande and petite sonnerie, a minute repeater, instantaneous perpetual calendar with a four-digit year display, second time zone, day/night indicator, day/date (on both dials), month, leap-year cycle, four-digit year display and 24-hour and minute subdial.

There are front and back dials, which can be changed via reversible lugs. The salmon colored front dial bears the inscription “The Only One” on the alarm subdial at 12 o’clock. The watch also has a chimed alarm function that strikes the time by reproducing the complete tone sequence of the minute repeater – a function never before integrated in a mechanical wristwatch.

To protect it against damage caused by inadvertent manipulations, it incorporates isolators that interrupt the flow of power between individual mechanisms or block certain functions while others are active.Patek Philippe originally introduced the Grandmaster Chime in 2014 in a series of seven pieces to mark its 175th anniversary.

It is not known who bought the watch, and 100% of the proceeds of the sale go to Duchenne muscular dystrophy research.

The story of the auction itself, with people watching on incredulously as the numbers soared past the $20 million mark, also makes for a great read.

Pop past GQ here if you want to better understand how this watch came to shatter all the records.

[source:forbes]