Brady and the JPS were a pairing that flamed out quickly. After spending years as an IWC ambassador, Brady has quickly become a megacollector in retirement. His first months of horological freedom were marked by a slew of impressive and expensive modern watches: blinged-out Rolex Arabic-Dial Day-Dates, Richard Mille pieces, and the controversial Puzzle Dial Rolex. So when Brady turned up with this JPS during a ceremony honoring him at a New England Patriots game last season, it felt like further confirmation of his collector bona fides. The JPS would be the rarest and coolest watch in many people’s collections, and that includes folks like Brady who can theoretically get their mitts on whatever they want.
In 2023, a non-Brady version of the JPS sold for 2,238,000 Swiss francs (roughly $2.6 million). Sotheby’s put a predictably conservative high-end estimate of $900,000 on this watch. Despite all the turbulence in the watch market at present, rare Rolex sport watches are the category most immune to those headwinds. It will be fun to see if the Brady effect pushes this watch’s value even higher.
This is the first-ever auction to include Brady’s watches and he says it’ll be the last. “I’m not the first person to say this, but as you get older, you understand that time is everything,” he told Sotheby’s. “Where you put your energy is a direct reflection of your values. I’m signifying a step out of my playing career, and recognizing that others will cherish these items the way I value the ones in my collection. This is the only time this will happen, so hopefully people will take advantage of the opportunity to put something so meaningful of mine into their own collections.”
The JPS isn’t the only meaningful piece from Brady’s collection announced today. Here are a few other highlights coming to auction on December 10 at Sotheby’s New York.
Patek Philippe Grand Complication pocket watch (Estimate: $200,000 to $400,000)
