Here Comes the Sun (on Leap Day)

Happy February 29th, Collectors. 

In honor of Leap Day, we’d like to extend our warmest birthday wishes to Ja Rule, Tony Robbins, and everyone who celebrates every four years. We can always count on a Leap Year meaning the Summer Olympics and a presidential election are on the horizon, but did you know that sometimes we leap right over the Leap Year? Here’s the rule: if the year is divisible by 100 but not 400, there’s no February 29th. We skipped would-have-beens in 1700, 1800, and 1900. The next time we’ll skip one will be 2100.

Remember that- it will be useful in a minute. 

Now let’s leap into it.  

Collector’s Item

We’re not going to try and pretend we know precisely why Leap Years exist, aside from our method of calculating time (years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds) not lining up perfectly with how the earth revolves around the sun. To account for those minor discrepancies, an extra day is added to the calendar (almost) every four years, and voila, Leap Years! (If you want a more, ahem, scientific explanation of Leap Years, NASA has a guide worth reading). 

For the average analog watch owner, Leap Day, the extra day added to February, isn’t all fun and games. Most watches with a date wheel - even annual calendars- need to be reset at the end of every February to account for the discrepancy between dates. It’s a pain (but still better than a smartwatch)!

Watches are intricate tools made up of tiny metal springs, screws and rotors that can somehow figure out how long a day is. Add in the complexity of accounting for not only days and months but Leap Years? Forgetaboutit. But in 1762, before the invention of the tin can (1810), the steam locomotive (1814), and the first sewing machine (1845), Thomas Mudge invented the first perpetual calendar in a pocket watch that could accurately account for Leap Years. 

If you’re sick of changing your watch for Leap Years, a perpetual calendar, kept wound, will stay accurate until 2100 (remember?!)- so for another 76 years. But perpetual calendars are not cheap. 

In fact, some of the most expensive watches to ever sell at auction were perpetual calendars, including: 

• In 2016 a steel Patek Philippe 1518 sold at Phillips Geneva for $11M (a world record at the time)  

• The 1518 unseated another Patek perpetual calendar for that top spot, knocking off a steel 5016, which sold for roughly $7.3M 

• Last year’s second most expensive sale went to, you guessed it, a Patek Philippe, this time the ‘Sky Moon Tourbillon’ (that boasted a perpetual calendar, a minute repeater, a retrograde date, moon phases, and more), which sold for $5.8M

Not every perpetual calendar costs millions of dollars. Swiss watchmaker IWC sells a perpetual calendar in their Portugieser model for roughly $25,000, and Jaeger LeCoultre sells their ultra-thin version for a hair under $30,000. 

A small price to pay for not having to reset the date, some would say. 

Penny Thoughts:

• 🎶…Penny Thoughts are in my ears and in my eyes...🎶 The Fab Four were all over the collectibles news this past week, with Heritage Auctions’ Beatles "Coming to America" sale, which culminated on Feb 24th. The sale included John Lennon’s copy of The White Album (hammered for $162,500, including buyer’s premium) and seven original photos from the Abbey Road cover shoot (also sold for $162,500 incl. premium). A signed in-flight menu from The Beatles' first US trip sold for $100,000, thankfully without Pan Am’s recipe for the meal's starter, kangaroo-tail soup (not kidding). And a Mantel community member swooped up an awesome hand-painted Yellow Submarine animation cel from the auction- read their overjoyed post here. 

• Movie-going sure has changed since Yellow Submarine was released in 1968, at least when it comes to popcorn buckets. Possibly because physical movie tickets are being phased out, buttery buckets commemorating specific films are the new prized keepsake of the cinema. Theater chains can charge more than $20 per “vessel ” (if you’re familiar with industry lingo), but of course, collectible buckets trade for significantly more (e.g. there are multiple “Disney Star Wars R2-D2 Popcorn Bucket Sippers” listed on eBay for north of $2,000, TBD whether or not they sell). A somewhat controversial “Dune: Part Two” bucket made its way onto Saturday Night Live recently and we agree that the bucket is pretty funny looking, but if you need one for the collection, they can be scooped up for about $45 on eBay. 

Earlier this month we told you about the attic find of a lifetime- a sealed case of 1987 O-Pee-Chee hockey cards. The case of 16 boxes sold at Heritage Auctions on Sunday after a flurry of last-day bidding, finally hammering for the staggering price of $3.7M. Now the tough decision- open the case in a quest to pull a pristine Wayne Gretzky rookie card (or several), sell the boxes off individually, or keep everything sealed.

We’ll be watching.