This weekend at Phillips‘ New York Watch Auction XIII the headline lot, a F.P. Journe FFC prototype belonging to director Francis Ford Coppola sold for $10.75 million making it the most expensive timepiece from the independent watchmaker ever sold. Prices for the company’s creations have skyrocketed on the secondary market in the last five years and it shows no sign of slowing down. Granted, this watch carries heavyweight provenance with an A-list Hollywood name behind it and out-of-the-box innovation from one of the most important living watchmakers to date. But the other, F.P. Journes in the sale also exceeded their top estimates by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Nevertheless, the brand isn’t exactly thrilled by its secondary market success, and with good reason. On Wednesday at Robb Report’s House of Robb event in Miami, Pierre Halimi, the longtime manager of F.P. Journe in America (who has worked with the watchmaker for over three decades), told the crowd during a panel discussion that the company is not a fan of its skyrocketing auction prices. “Right now, I would say unfortunately, which is kind of weird prices are just stupid. They are way to high. And we’re not happy about this. We’d rather have, you know, the break.” He pointed to Hermès as bellwether example of success, noting that when times are good the French house is up and when times are bad it is still up. He also added that wildly high auction prices also attracts collectors (and flippers) who are more interested in the price than the value, usually indicating they have no idea of the artistry, craftsmanship, and meaning behind what they’re buying.

The original idea came from Coppola during a 2012 dinner at his Napa Valley estate, when he asked François-Paul Journe whether a human hand had ever been used to tell time. The resulting design—a blackened-titanium sculpted hand whose five articulated fingers indicate the hours, with minutes displayed on a rotating outer ring—represents a bold, imaginative departure from traditional watch dials. Mechanically, the FFC is remarkably intuitive despite its theatrical display: a cam-driven system choreographs the opening and closing of the fingers, allowing the hand to “count” each hour with surprising clarity, while the minutes track is powered by a modified automatic calibre from the Octa family. True to Journe tradition, the movement is crafted in solid 18-karat rose gold, a material the watchmaker reserves for his highest complications, offering stability, durability, and a warm visual contrast to the dark titanium of the case. The finishing is equally refined, with sharp interior angles, hand-polished bevels, guilloché plates, and the richly textured sculpted hand set against the smooth, almost liquid flow of the minute ring. Together, these elements make the watch not just a cinematic concept come to life, but a technically sophisticated piece of haute horlogerie.

Still, even the most sophisticated collectors will sometimes need to part ways with their prized possession for a lucrative price. Coppola is said to have put the prototype up for auction as a result of the enormous financial burden he incurred from the creation of his latest film, Megalopolis. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film cost $120 million to make but has only raked in $14.4 million worldwide since its 2024 release. The director bypassed streaming of the flick, insisting it must be seen in theaters, until recently when it was released digitally, although it is still not available on major platforms like HBO or Netflix. That ethos, of course, is right in line with F.P. Journe’s equally steadfast respect for its own creations. Their shared vision? It’s about the craft, not the money. And that, is exactly why Journe likely had no qualms about the public sale of the treasured prototype.

“Well, it is a Hollywood story,” Halimi told Robb Report in regards to the sale, adding that the brand is now “part of the $10 million club, alongside Patek Philippe and Rolex. “And thanks to the the FFC,” he says. “What better ending?”