Francis Ford Coppola Is Auctioning Off His Multimillion-Dollar Watch Collection
Just over a year after Francis Ford Coppola’s $100 million bet on Megalopolis failed to pay off—with the Adam Driver-led epic earning just $14.4 million at the box office—the legendary director is looking to recoup some of his expenses by offloading a bunch of high-end watches. On December 6 and 7, during The New York Watch Auction: XIII at Phillips, seven of the 86-year-old’s spectacular timepieces are set to go under the hammer. And while some of said timepieces are more typical luxury fare—enamel-dial Breguets, an IWC Portugieser chronograph, a couple of lovely Pateks—there are two watches that should stop collectors dead in their track: Created in collaboration with Francois-Paul Journe himself, the F.P.Journe FCC Prototype is a watch that stemmed from a conversation between the two men that took place at Coppola’s Inglenook winery in Napa Valley in 2012. Coppola asked Journe if a watch had ever been created that used a human hand to indicate the time, and Journe was so intrigued by the concept that he built a prototype—the only watch he’s ever designed whose conceit didn’t stem from his own imagination. Based upon an early prosthetic from the 16th century, the FCC features a human hand in the center of its dial with articulating fingers that indicate the hours. (The minutes are indicated via a rotating outer ring.) In order to power the watch, Journe adapted his Octa caliber 1300.3 and the remontoir d’egalité (constant force) mechanism, taking seven years to develop a prototype. Initially, he crafted two pieces—one for Coppola engraved with the director’s name, and one for himself. Along with the unique FCC Blue, which was created for the 2021 Only Watch auction, these pieces remain the only FCCs produced by Journe himself. (A select number of FCCs are made for F.P. Journe’s top clients each year.) The FCC Prototype is expected to fetch around $1 million, but it’s not the only notable piece in the lot: Coppola first met Journe in 2009, after his wife gifted him a Chronomètre à Résonance in platinum with a white gold dial that Christmas. Carrying an estimate of $120,000 to $240,000, this spectacular piece is one of Journe’s signature models. Based upon a system used by Abraham-Louis Breguet and other star watchmakers, it features dual oscillators that beat in synchronicity with one another through the principle of resonance, stabilizing the movement and increasing accuracy. Developed initially as a pocket watch in 1983, Journe carted the system over to the humble wristwatch in 2000. If you’d love to own one of the mighty filmmaker’s timepieces but can’t afford to drop six figures, fear not—the rest of Coppola’s lots include a Patek Philippe Calatrava ref. 3919 (estimate: $6,000-$12,000), an IWC Portugieser Chronograph (estimate: $3,000-$6,000) with no reserve, and a Breguet Classique ref. 5140 (estimate: $4,000-$8,000) also with no reserve. Purchasing one of these watches has the potential to make you doubly a part of film history: You’ll have a piece once worn by the man who made The Godfather on your wrist, of course, and you might also have helped fund his next Apocalypse Now-sized swing for the fences in the process.