The First Commercially Sold F.P. Journe Résonance Could Fetch $1.15 Million

By Annie Davidson Watson | August 14, 2026

Phillips will offer a 38mm platinum Chronomètre à Résonance (serial number 022/99R) with a shiny pink gold dial and brass movement, acquired directly from François-Paul Journe in 1999, a year before the model’s official launch. It’s now offered by its original owner for the first time at The Geneva Watch Auction: XXIV on Nov. 7–8. The estimate is CHF 500,000 to CHF 1,000,000 (approximately $575,000 to $1,150,000).

The Chronomètre à Résonance was the first watch to apply the principle of resonance, whereby two closely positioned balance wheels synchronize through their mutual vibrations, stabilizing the rate, to a wearable timepiece. Drawing on 18th-century observations by horologist Antide Janvier and later explored by Abraham-Louis Breguet, Journe was the first to make it work on the wrist.

In 2026 alone, Phillips has sold three Chronomètre à Résonance watches for a combined $23.2 million—Souscription No. 007 for $13.9 million, Souscription No. 18 for $6.3 million, and the Pisa edition for $3 million. Those results establish a market floor that makes the 022/99R estimate look conservative on paper, though the comparison requires a caveat: the Souscription references carry their own storied provenance, and how collectors weight chronological primacy against association history will ultimately determine where this watch lands.

Numbers 001 through 020 were reserved for early supporters of Journe’s Tourbillon Souverain Souscription project, whose deposits helped finance the manufacture. Number 021 Journe kept as his own presentation piece. That makes 022 the earliest Chronomètre à Résonance ever to have changed hands commercially. The owner chose it deliberately (it matched his date of birth) and has held it for 27 years.

The “/99R” suffix places this watch in the Pre-Production series, indicating the case was ordered in 1999. According to Phillips, approximately ten Pre-Production examples are believed to exist—a tier that predates both the Souscription and Pre-Souscription Résonances that have appeared at auction in recent years, and the rarest stratum of an already contested model family.

“What we have here is not simply an early Résonance: It is, in all likelihood, the very first one delivered,” said Alexandre Ghotbi and Tiffany To of Phillips Watches in a statement. “Everything that followed—the acclaim, the waiting lists, the mythology around Journe—traces back to this watch.”

(Photo courtesy of Phillips)

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