The Ref. 1518 was the first serially produced perpetual-calendar chronograph wristwatch in history, and steel versions were historically the "everyman" option — gold was for the wealthy. Only four steel examples are known to survive.
The idea that a "budget" material version could sell for over $11 million genuinely shocked collectors, and the sale became a case study in how extreme rarity can flip a material's value logic entirely upside down.
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