Watch of the Day · 2026-08-10 · from the archive

Vacheron Constantin Chronograph

Ref. 4178 · Stainless Steel — one documented result from the 1,183-lot MostExpensiveWatches auction record, featured today.

Documented result
$150,000
Phillips Geneva · 2016
Vacheron Constantin in the corpus
55 documented results · record $8,000,000 (2015)

Widely considered one of the most beautiful chronograph designs of all time, the 4178 in steel is significantly rarer than the gold versions, featuring the iconic teardrop lugs.

The $150,000 sale of this Vacheron Constantin Reference 4178 at Phillips Geneva in 2016 reflects the scarcity of stainless steel examples. Featuring teardrop lugs, the steel 4178 is significantly rarer than gold versions. Within a corpus of 55 documented brand results—where the record is $8,000,

Full lot record & sources All Vacheron Constantin results The Grail Index

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About this series

Every day MostExpensiveWatches features one documented auction result from its comp corpus — hammer prices with primary sources, the record layer behind the Grail Index and the daily Price Index. Machine-readable: /data/watch-of-the-day.json. Cite as “MostExpensiveWatches Watch of the Day”.

Compiled: 2026-08-10T00:15:25.038141+00:00