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Shopping Time: F.P. Journe Prices Are Softening. Here Are 5 to Buy Now.

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Shopping Time: F.P. Journe Prices Are Softening. Here Are 5 to Buy Now.

We are always scouring the web for the most amazing watches currently available, and each Friday Shopping Time shares five standout timepieces with you.

F. P. Journe is, for many watch collectors, the ultimate watch brand to own. Here at Shopping Time, we’ve documented Rolex GMT Masters, the Patek Philippe NautilusAudemars Piguet Royal Oak(pre-TAG) Heuer chronographs. steel Rolex Daytona and even the Cartier Tank, but this is the first time that we are digging into a brand that made our list of the “25 Greatest Independent Watchmakers in the World.” Robb Report has looked into F. P. Journe’s Resonance watch in great detail, cataloging all of the different series the watchmaker has issued over the past few decades. And we’ve fallen for nearly every release, including the Journe Élégante, the Vagabondage, the Octa Perpetual Calendar, and more. We put Journe repeatedly on our Best Of lists.

So why is it that the watchmaking of Francois-Paul Journe has so persuasively captivated the world of watch collecting—as well as the staff here at Robb Report? It really comes down to three things. Joune’s level of craft and finishing is unmatched. Journe takes daring moves with complications (such as the Resonance) that have become watchmaking landmarks, And, perhaps most importantly, Journe makes incredibly handsome watches with movements so beautiful that many collectors claim they’d wear them backwards if the lugs allowed for it.

In a recent interview with a prominent, but anonymous, collector who goes by @NYCwatchguy, the collector told Robb Report of his Tourbillon Souverain by F.P. Journe, “If you put a gun to my head and said I’d have to get rid of everything and could only wear one watch for the rest of my life, it would be this Journe tourbillon in platinum.” Given his utterly insane collection that includes pieces from Akrivia, Simon Brette, MB&F, and a one-of-a-kind Grönefeld, this is really saying something. Journe just captivates those for whom price is no object.

Speaking of price, according to the watch market index Everywatch, Journe’s timepieces had been on an insane upward trajectory. The Tourbillon Souverain, the Chronometre à Resonance, and the Vagabondage I, II, and III all take a sharp turn upward in price starting in 2019. When we say steep, we mean steep. For example, the Chronometre à Resonance was fetching a healthy twice-retail price of around $80,000 in early 2019, and by 2021 an example festched $588,000 (and we’ve heard tell of a seven-figure Series One selling privately). This is—and we don’t use this phrase lightly—completely bonkers. But the good news is that those prices are, like the rest of the market, coming back down toward something like sanity—that is, if you can consider five- and six-figure prices sane.

But whatever your pocketbook has to say about these prices, it’s kind of incredible that one can simply go buy a Journe at all, seeing as these watches have been made in limited numbers and have been coveted for decades. Below we’ve curated five of the best examples available on the market right now.

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