Francis Ford Coppola’s one of one F.P.Journe FFC prototype is the main attraction for Phillips’ The New York Watch Auction XIII on Dec. 6-7 with an estimated value above $1 million. The watch was conceived in 2012 after Journe met with Coppola at his Inglenook winery in Napa Valley. Coppola inquired whether there existed any timepiece made by a human hand to indicate time. Both men were intrigued by this question which led to seven years of research and development to create a timepiece with this novel feature; it would be the first timepiece in history to use a human hand to indicate time.
Coppola’s FFC watch will serve as the only F.P.Journe timepiece in history whose concept did not originate in François Paul Journe’s mind. Prior to creating the FFC timepiece, Journe had created six other prototype timepieces himself since he founded the Manufacture in 1999 and each was sold. As a result, the FFC timepiece is extremely rare. Two prototype versions were developed to create the FFC timepiece, however, Journe retained one version of the FFC for his private collection.
Journe referenced Ambroise Paré who was a 16th century barber surgeon known as the father of modern surgery and innovator of prosthetic limbs. Paré created a mechanical prosthetic hand called Le Petit Lorrain using iron and leather, along with hidden gears and springs that enabled fingers to articulate. This prosthetic hand served as a reference point for the automaton hour indication used in the FFC timepiece. The design of the FFC timepiece embodies a steampunk aesthetic through its use of metallic plates that overlap and screws similar to those found on medieval gauntlets.
The major technical challenge facing Journe was to power the hand mechanism without depleting the energy of the movement. To accomplish this, Journe modified the Octa caliber 1300.3 with remontoir d’égalité. He spent seven years perfecting the design and created a movement of 8.1 mm thickness. In addition to the movement, the FFC timepiece also has a rotating white minutes ring, a black treated titanium hand and steel bridges. The FFC Blue created for Only Watch 2021 and Coppola’s prototype are among the very few watches that were assembled entirely by Journe’s hands.
In addition to the FFC timepiece, six other watches from Coppola’s private collection will be included in the auction. One of the watches included in the collection is the platinum F.P.Journe Chronomètre à Résonance that was gifted to Coppola by his wife, Eleanor in 2009. The other watches included in the collection are from Patek Philippe, Breguet, Blancpain and IWC. All of the watches in the collection will fund Coppola’s future film-making endeavors.
