Eqotime meets Aurel Bacs

Text/picture: Britta Rossander & Mia Litström

Eqotime meets Phillips strong man, Aurel Bacs, to talk about intake, sales and what is viable today and tomorrow and why.

Aurel began his career as a watch specialist at Sotheby’s and has since then worked his way upwards to now be the single most important player in the auction industry for watches. He has broken record after record, including having sold the most expensive wristwatch ever at auction.

The interest in watches he got from his dad, who on a hobby basis dabbled in mechanical and vintage watches. He said to his son when he was 20 years old that now it is about time you got a proper watch, which in his world meant an Omega, IWC or a Jaeger-LeCoultre, that is to say a round mechanical watch and not a Japanese plastic watch, which back then was hotter in Aurel's world.

The dad vacuumed antique markets, auctions and pawnshops. He could, Aurel tells us, buy practically any mechanical or vintage watch at all and would then show it off to a group of like-minded collectors to discuss what they had bought.

– That was when I realised that he bought a watch for 250 francs only to then sell it at one of the collector meetings for 350 francs. That was when a light went on for me. If dad can do that, then so can I, and there I was hooked. 

After that the step was not so big to seek out the auction industry, where Aurel quickly learned the importance of discipline and respect for deadlines, Sotheby’s was the first stop from 1995 to 2000 and today Aurel is one of the greatest conductors of how a successful watch auction should be carried out. 

It seems as if it is the passion and the appetite, mixed with a true love of watches and watch collectors together with a certain competitive nature, that is the recipe for the success. 

On site in Aurel's office at Phillips' head office in Geneve we got to know more about the fascinating auction industry for watches and how he works.