FROM THE AUCTIONS. Breaking record for George Daniels “Space Traveller I” sold by Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s has set a new record when the auction top lot, the watch named “Space Traveler” and made by George Daniels, was sold for the astonishing amount of 3,615,000 pounds.
Inspired by astronauts and space (this month will be the 50th anniversary of the moon landing), in 1979 Daniels began to design a multi-complicated astronomical watch indicating the equation of time, sidereal and solar time, the annual calendar, the phases and age of the moon.

Image courtesy of Sotheby’s

George Daniels, who died in 2011 at the age of eighty-five, is considered one of the greatest watchmakers of recent times. In his mastery and creativity Daniels was inspired by the various masterpieces of Abraham-Louis Breguet, which in the 1970s led him to realize the coaxial escapement which was adopted in 1999 for the first time, thanks to the interest and intercession of Nicolas G. Hayek, on the Omega wristwatches of the De Ville collection. In addition to this Daniels over the years realized an infinite of unique timepieces constantly inspired by the masters of the past, in the first place Breguet to whom he had dedicated a volume entitled The Art of Breguet.

The “Space Traveler” was completed in 1982 as tribute to the astronauts that George Daniels so admired, and for this reason it was conceived as a watch – which in some ways – would be perfect for those heroes during their space flights.
To animate the watch is another of the innovations introduced by Daniels himself, an independent two-wheeled escapement thanks to which the watch is able to indicate simultaneously both the standard and the sidereal time. To get to the most precise indication of the average solar time and the time takes by the Earth to complete a full turn refered to the stars, Daniels had to study and improve the calculations performed by the eighteenth-century watchmaker George Margetts, known for his astronomical clocks.

Once completed, the “Space Traveler” was sold to the antiquarian Bobinet, who than sold it to the collector Jay Lennon. In 1988 the watch was auctioned by Sotheby’s in Geneva becoming part of a private collection until a few days ago. Personally sorry for the sale of his masterpiece, Daniel few years later from the completation of the first exemplar crafted a second one that kept with him for the rest of life and which, after his death, was sold by Sotheby’s in 2012 and then in 2017. During the last apparition it was sold at 3,196,250 pounds.