Vintage Patek Philippe watches manufactured during the 1930s are famously expensive, frequently reaching six- if not seven-figure sums at auction – yet at a recent Christie’s sale in Geneva, one canny bidder walked off with a possibly unique, gold-cased example for a mere €5,150. How come?

The answer, of course, is that this was a watch for the pocket, not for the wrist.

The simplest explanation for high-quality pocket watches remaining so affordable is that they went out of fashion almost a century ago. Until World War I, portable timepieces lived snug in waistcoat pockets, securely attached to their owners by a fob chain – but in the thick of battle it proved far more convenient to simply glance at one’s wrist to check the time, and nowadays anyone who uses a pocket watch is deemed either eccentric or short-sighted.

The result is that beautifully designed, fully functioning pocket watches by legendary brands such as Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Girard-Perregaux and Audemars Piguet can be bought for as little as €1,500, particularly those with simple “time only” movements.

“One of the reasons they remain such good value is that supply is greater than demand,” explains Paul Maudsley, a watch specialist with Bonhams in London. “We only have four or five regular buyers who bid for pieces that they intend to wear, yet a huge number of pocket watches were produced up until the 1920s. When they were new they were regarded as objects of value and were therefore looked after and handed down through families.

“The English-made pieces are often of better quality than the Swiss ones,” Maudsley continues, “but there are many beautifully made Swiss pocket watches that sell for relatively little money because they are unsigned and cannot be attributed to a particular maker.”

One buyer who recently took advantage of the bargains to be had in the pocket watch world bought a rose gold Patek Philippe dating from 1877 for around €3,800, a fraction of the value of its wristwatch equivalent.

“The decision to buy stemmed from a discussion about my grandfather’s pocket watch, which has been passed down through the family,” said the buyer, who wished to remain anonymous.

“We thought it would be nice to buy another pocket watch but whereas the original intention was to buy a modern one and have it engraved, we quickly realised that it was vastly more sensible to source an immaculate vintage piece. Most timepieces from the late 19th and early 20th centuries were made to an unbelievably high standard that would cost an absolute fortune today. The ‘new’ equivalent of the $5,000 Patek we bought at auction would cost four or five times more.”

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that all pocket watches are undervalued, because the best of the best remain the quiet kings of the horologist’s art. The fact that a pocket watch case is much larger than that of a wristwatch means the great watch makers could equip them withextraordinarily complicated movements, as in the case of the legendary “Supercomplication” made for New York banking tycoon Henry Graves during the early 1930s. It sold for a staggering €8.5m at Sotheby’s in 1999 and remains the most expensive timepiece ever to be auctioned.