Top 10 Most Expensive Watches in the World

Let's be honest: you don't buy this to tell the time. The dial is so small you can barely see it in the sea of diamonds. Laurence Graff, the owner of the company, wanted to create a “sculptural masterpiece”. The watch contains pink, blue, green and orange diamonds. You probably wouldn't dare move your arm while wearing it, for fear of a multimillion-dollar stone falling off.

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Graff also takes second place. This watch is a bit 'calmer' than number 1, as it consists entirely of white diamonds (152 carats in total). The fun part is that it's a Transformer: in the middle sits a huge pear-shaped diamond that you can remove. According to Graff's jewelers, you can then wear that stone as a ring, while the rest of the watch serves as a bracelet. Two for the price of one, then.

For purists, this is the real number 1. It is the most expensive watch ever actually sold at auction. It was made especially for the 'Only Watch' charity auction. What makes it special is that it is made of stainless steel (which Patek almost never does). It has two dials (front and back) and no fewer than 20 different functions. When the hammer fell at auction house Christie's in Geneva, a shock went through the room; nobody expected the price to climb that high.

This watch has the most bizarre story of all. It was commissioned in 1783 by a secret admirer of French queen Marie-Antoinette. It had to be the most complex watch ever. Unfortunately, making it took so long (44 years!) that both the queen and its maker had long since died when it was finished. In 1983 it was stolen from a museum in Jerusalem, only to resurface decades later.

This watch is so thin and delicate that it barely stands out. It was given to Queen Elizabeth II of England for her 60th jubilee on the throne. It looks like a silver bracelet, but there really is a little clock inside. Its movement (the Calibre 101) is the smallest mechanical movement in the world, with parts barely bigger than a grain of sand.

The name says it all: 201 carats of diamonds. It looks like an explosion in a flower shop, but with gemstones. Three large heart-shaped diamonds sit in the middle (pink, blue and white). Press a button and these hearts open like petals to reveal the dial.

This isn't a wristwatch but a pocket watch. It was made in the 1930s for American banker Henry Graves Jr. He was locked in a contest of one-upmanship with car maker James Ward Packard: who could commission the most complicated watch? Graves won. The thing is so complex that, among other things, it shows the exact position of the night sky above Graves' home in New York.

Subtle it is not. This watch is a block of white gold completely covered in emerald-cut diamonds. It became famous mainly because boxer Floyd Mayweather bought one and proudly showed it off on Instagram. The watch is so big and chunky that you need a boxer's wrists to be able to wear it.

This is the Holy Grail for collectors. For years nobody knew where this specific watch of actor Paul Newman was. It turned out he had once given it to his daughter's boyfriend (“Here kid, this thing keeps good time when I go racing”). When that boy had it auctioned years later, the price exploded. It is 'just' a steel Rolex, but its history makes it priceless.

You'd think gold is more expensive than steel, right? In the watch world it is sometimes the other way around. Patek Philippe almost always made this model in gold. Because only four were made in stainless steel during the Second World War, they are now rarer than anything. Experts at auction house Phillips explain that for collectors this is the ultimate status symbol: a watch that looks simple but makes connoisseurs drool.