A Mysterious WatchVacheron Constantin ‘Don Pancho’
At its upcoming Geneva Watch Auction: NINE on May 11-12, Phillips, in association with Aurel Bacs of Bacs & Russo is going to provide an extremely rare Vacheron Constantin minute repeater wristwatch. The yellow gold replica watch (nicknamed the “Don Pancho”) is from 1940 and features a vintage calendar, making it nothing but a ‘holy grail’ for watch collectors. “We believe this is one of the most important wristwatches in the world,” Bacs said in a joint statement with Alex Ghotbi, Phillips’ Head of Sales in Geneva.
“Before, the only record of the fake watch was a black and white photo, but we fell for it. We’ve been talking about it for years, dreaming of seeing it, and we can say it’s not just a myth, it’s a real treasure. In the 1930s, no other calendar watch had a retrograde date and minute hand, so this was a revolutionary cheap watch tailored for a very important customer, “whose nickname was Don Pancho.”
The Vacheron, one of the watchmaker’s iconic trinity, is expected to fetch about $800,000, and while it doesn’t make the list of the VC grand complication watches sold for $1.8 million in 2011, it is still impressive. “Given that this watch is unparalleled and the work of Vacheron Constantin in the 20th century, we consider it to be the best example of a museum-quality replica rolex watch.” Mr. Backus and Mr. Gaby added.
For the past 60 years, the watch’s owner, a wealthy madrid-born businessman Francisco Martinez Llano, has put the watch in a vault. In late 1935, Don Pancho commissioned the watch from the Madrid watch boutique in Vacheron. It has “a large gold tonneau case, a crown at 12 o ‘clock, a one-minute repeater, the lowest possible tone, a repeater trigger on the right side of the case, date, date reversal, his initials on the back of the case in blue enamel.”
Customers also asked for two dials — one with black-breguet numerals, the other with radium – and a choice of six interchangeable straps. Then, Vacheron entrusting main components to the Swiss’s some of the greatest artisans, whose name will be known by important fake watch collectors: “repetitive mechanical device is assigned to the Nicole, calendar is assigned to the Victorin Piguet, dial is assigned to Stern Frères.
After years of building, this watch was finally launched in January 1940 with only a radium dial. After Llano’s death – just seven years later – it disappeared for more than 60 years, by which time “it had become a legend that every replica watch collector, scholar and enthusiast wanted to pursue, but couldn’t because it couldn’t be traced back,” phillips said, until now.