Konstantin Chaykin’s Watch Sold for $435,000 at a Charity Auction

The fourth Encore Charity dinner, held in March, raised over 402 million rubles (approximately $4.4 million on the day of the auction). The highlight of the auction was a "Konstantin Chaykin" Manufacture's Joker Encore Charity Piece Unique watch, featuring a finely hand-hammered dial crafted by Chaykin himself. After intense bidding, the watch sold for a record 40 million rubles ($435,000), becoming the most expensive Russian watch.

The Russian watchmaker and inventor views watchmaking as an art form, constantly seeking to push the boundaries and explore new horizons. The Joker Encore Charity watch features an innovative dial finish, a first in Konstantin Chaykin's collection, employing a finely hand-hammered surface. The pattern is unique; the master personally crafted tools with tips shaped like a pentagonal pyramid and hammered the dial by hand.

"I believe that a serious craftsman should always have the tools he feels most comfortable working with," says Konstantin Chaykin. "Otherwise, it's impossible to produce quality work. So when I decided to explore the hammering technique for the new dial, I began to think about which tool would give the best results. The image of the Soviet quality mark, shaped like a pentagon, came to mind, so I asked myself: why not design a carbide chaser with a sharp, pentagonal pyramid-shaped tip? I was so pleased with the result that I decided to finish the dial exclusively with this hammering technique."

Every aspect of the decoration on a collector's watch, such as the Joker Encore Charity, is crucial. Achieving such a finish requires exceptional precision, meticulous attention to detail, and perseverance from the craftsman to meet the highest standards. By adopting the hammering technique, an approach not typically seen in his Manufacture's watches, Chaykin aimed to offer an alternative to the orderly and structured guilloche decoration traditionally found in the Wristmons collection.

In watchmaking, decorative techniques that give the surface an irregular and chaotic character are rare, requiring an unconventional approach. The answer lay in using a pentagonal pyramid-shaped chaser with a faceted tip, a choice that guaranteed the dial's surface would have an irregular structure, a hallmark of this specific technique. With the slightest movement of the watch, the dial's surface comes to life, reflecting light, shadow, and reflections on its numerous facets created by the hammered marks. The unique five-faceted shape prevents the craftsman from creating straight lines, resulting in a surface that appears chaotic and unpredictable yet maintains a sense of wholeness, much like natural textures, that rarely exhibit order. This makes the Joker Encore Charity watch's dial, with its hand-hammered finish by Konstantin Chaykin, strikingly distinct from other more orderly decorated dials.

Konstantin Chaykin has a long history of supporting charity events, having participated three times in the prestigious Only Watch auction. In 2021, his Manufacture donated the Martian Tourbillon Only Watch 2021 Piece Unique, which sold for 290,000 Swiss francs, setting a record for the most highly valued Russian-made watch at that time. However, the Joker Encore Charity Piece Unique has since surpassed this record, setting a new benchmark for the value of Russian watches.

Encore Charity is dedicated to providing targeted support to seriously ill children, young adults, and vulnerable social groups. The funds raised are used for treatment programs, prosthetics, and the support of scientific medical research. Each year, the Foundation gathers patrons of the arts, business people, and cultural and artistic figures for a charity evening aimed at raising funds for its charitable programs. In 2024, Konstantin Chaykin participated in the auction for the first time, donating a unique Joker watch – the Joker Encore Charity Piece Unique. The starting bid for this exclusive item was 3 million rubles, and the final sale exceeded the initial estimate by 13 times.