Earlier this year, The New Yorker published an article by Jay Fielden in which three distinct motifs converged. One was the perennial appeal of The Beatles – and, more specifically, John Lennon. The second was the world of luxury watches, in particular a Patek Philippe that Lennon received shortly before his death in 1980. The third, and perhaps the least expected, was a true crime thriller that crossed international borders.
In the article Fielden referred to the timepiece in question as “the El Dorado of lost watches.” How did a Patek Philippe 2499 reach such mythic status? As he explained, the watch in question would be a collector’s item even without its Lennon connection, given its rarity and complexity. But this watch was also a gift to Lennon from Yoko Ono a few months before he was murdered; it remained in Ono’s possession until it was stolen decades later.
Now, that legal and horological saga has reached its conclusion. Writing at Bloomberg, Hugo Miller and Andy Hoffman report that Switzerland’s Federal Court — the nation’s highest legal body — ruled in favor of Ono. The watch had previously been in the possession of a collector referred to as “Mr. A” in The New Yorker‘s reporting, who purchased it years after the theft and has been embroiled in a legal battle to keep it.
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This predated their time in The BeatlesThe watch was initially stolen, as Fielden’s article noted, by Ono’s former driver. The Swiss court concluded that the driver had “appropriated it without right, so that his possession was illegitimate ab initio.” Since “[h]e was unable to acquire ownership of it, not relying on any other cause of acquisition than the donation which did not take place,” the court ruled that the watch should be returned to Ono.
It’s taken decades, but it sounds like the Patek Philippe 2499 is returning home — and a fascinating part of Lennon and Ono’s history has been resolved.
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