A Seized Philippe Dufour Simplicity Heads to a No-Reserve UK Government Auction

Most Philippe Dufour Simplicity watches change hands quietly, between collectors who waited years for the privilege. Simplicity No. 199 is taking a far less conventional route. On October 29, Wilsons Auctions opens a 24-hour online sale in which the 2011 rose gold watch leads five timepieces forfeited to the UK government, and every one of them is offered without reserve. For anyone who has only followed a Philippe Dufour Simplicity auction from the sidelines, this one comes with an unusual guarantee: the watch will sell, whatever the final bid.

The official backstory is brief, and we will keep it that way. According to Wilsons, the five watches were recovered during an investigation by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the UK’s tax authority, into a multimillion-pound outsourced labour payroll fraud.

Investigators uncovered evidence of more than £7 million being spent on luxury watches over a three-year period, and five timepieces were seized from an individual attempting to leave the UK. They were subsequently forfeited, and Wilsons, which sells seized assets on behalf of UK government bodies and law enforcement agencies, has now catalogued them in its Unreserved Government Auction.

That is the extent of the public account. The auction house names no one, and neither will we. What the catalogue does name is the watch at the top of it, and that is where the story becomes a horological one.

The Simplicity, No. 199

To understand why a time-only dress watch leads a sale that also includes a Patek Philippe grand complication, it helps to know the man who made it. Philippe Dufour trained as a watchmaker in the Vallée de Joux, worked for Jaeger-LeCoultre in Le Sentier, and spent years restoring complicated pocket watches before building his own pieces in a small workshop in Le Solliat, in the same valley.

In 1992, he showed what he describes as the first grande sonnerie with minute repeater ever made as a wristwatch at Basel, and in 1996 he followed it with the Duality, a double-balance watch of which, by his own count, only nine exist.

The Simplicity, presented at Basel in 2000, was the opposite exercise: hours, minutes, and small seconds, executed without compromise. Dufour has written that a fellow independent encouraged him to make a watch for Japanese collectors, and that rather than order engraved movements and farm out the casing and finishing, he chose the harder path of making the watch himself from start to finish.

Its movement measures 30mm across and 4mm thick, with a 52-hour power reserve and a screwed Glucidur balance with a Breguet overcoil beating at 18,000 vibrations per hour, housed in a 34mm or 37mm case. Of the roughly 200 Simplicity watches he produced, Dufour says 120 went to Japan.

In our view, the Simplicity matters less for what it does than for what it proved. At a moment when big complications were the industry’s preferred calling card, a lone watchmaker showed that hand finishing of the highest order, lavished on the simplest possible watch, could command the attention of the world’s most serious collectors. That idea now underpins much of independent watchmaking, the world we mapped in our guides to independent watch brands and the independents worth knowing next.

Wilsons lists No. 199 as Lot 1: a 2011 Simplicity in 18k rose gold, 37mm, with a white dial on a leather strap, sold with its box but without papers. The auction house’s photographs show a silvered dial with a hand-guilloché center beneath the Philippe Dufour nameplate, gold Arabic numerals at 3, 9, and 12, and, through the sapphire caseback, a movement with broad striping and a gold plate signed by its maker.

One detail for the careful bidder: the lot page lists the movement type as automatic, though the caseback photographs show no winding rotor, consistent with the manually wound caliber Dufour designed.

The Supporting Lots

The Simplicity has serious company. Lot 10 is a Patek Philippe Ref. 5204R-011, the Maison’s perpetual calendar split-seconds chronograph, in 18k rose gold at 40mm with a grey dial on a leather strap, offered without box or papers. It pairs two of Geneva’s most demanding complications: a perpetual calendar that accounts for months of different lengths and leap years, and a rattrapante that can time two events at once. It also continues a perpetual calendar chronograph tradition that Patek Philippe has cultivated since the Ref. 2499.

Audemars Piguet appears twice. Lot 5 is a Royal Oak Ref. 26530ST, which Wilsons describes as a Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon “Premier” limited edition of 10, in stainless steel with a blue dial and a flying tourbillon at six o’clock, sold with box and papers. Lot 15 is a steel Royal Oak Chronograph Ref. 26331ST at 41mm, with a blue dial and contrasting subdials, offered without box or papers.

Completing the five is Lot 2, an Omega Speedmaster Ref. 329.30.44.51.01.001 in stainless steel at 44.25mm with a black dial, sold with box and papers. It is the reference Omega has offered as a Speedmaster Racing chronograph, and the only one of the five without photographs on its lot page so far.

“A Philippe Dufour Simplicity is a watch many collectors wait years just to see, let alone buy, and to have it in the same sale as a Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar and a limited edition Royal Oak is exceptional,” says James Guiler, luxury goods specialist at Wilsons Auctions. “These are masterpieces of craftsmanship from some of the most respected names in watchmaking, and because the sale is unreserved, every one of them will sell on the day.”

It is the final clause that should interest collectors most. None of the five lot pages carries a published estimate, so the room, or rather the browser tab, will decide what a Simplicity is worth on the day, without a safety net for the seller or a ceiling for the buyer.

The Unreserved Government Auction runs online from 11 AM GMT on Thursday, October 29, to 11 AM GMT on Friday, October 30, which is 7 AM to 7 AM ET. Lots close in sequence, and the Simplicity is scheduled to close first, at 11:01 AM GMT (7:01 AM ET). Wilsons’ lot pages list a 30% buyer’s premium and a £1,000 deposit to register, and the full catalogue is on the Wilsons Auctions website.

For context, Dufour’s own site records Simplicity results of CHF 662,000 and CHF 756,000, and CHF 1,360,000 for a 20th-anniversary example. Whatever No. 199 brings on October 30, it will be a rare case of a Simplicity finding its price with no floor at all. For a watch built on the conviction that nothing should be added for show, that feels like the right way to sell it.

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Adrienne Faurote

Editor in Chief · Haute Time

As a former New Yorker, now a “Miamian,” Adrienne Faurote joined Haute Living in August of 2021. She currently serves as the Haute Media Group Editor-in-Chief, overseeing all editorial platforms within the Haute Media Group while also maintaining her role as Fashion, Jewelry & Watch Director. Prior to her position at Haute Living, Faurote was the Market Editor at Marie Claire Magazine US, amassing over ten years in the industry, becoming an authoritative voice in all things fashion, jewelry, and watches.