(This story is subject to a legal complaint)

MANUFACTURERS of the world’s most expensive wrist-watches have been paying record amounts to buy back their own watches at auction.

The practice, which is being used to help launch more expensive new ranges of the brands’ luxury watches, has seen one-off models being bought by their own makers for 10 times their presale estimate. The value of some items has increased by up to 80 times over 20 years.

Other collectors are now complaining that the high prices being paid by watchmakers such as Omega and Patek Philippe are making it increasingly difficult for private individuals to compete.

The practice has been high-lighted by a recent auction in Geneva at which Omega – the brand whose “ambassadors” include the Hollywood stars Nicole Kidman, George Clooney and Daniel Craig – outbid collectors bidding online from all over the world on 47 lots.

One successful company bid was for its own 1953 platinum Constellation Grand Luxe watch which sold for more than £173,000. The estimate had been £12,600-£16,800.

Timepieces that attract the highest bids are mint condition collectors’ watches that often go into the makers’ Swiss museums, which are open to the public. But these collections have a business edge. Record auction prices set precedents for future sales and enhance aware-ness of the brand, establishing it as highly collectable.

Stephen Urquhart, Omega’s president, said part of the aim of the sale, named Antiquorum Omegamania, was to help push the brand upmarket with correspondingly high prices.

“This auction should serve to reposition the brand in terms of both pricing and image, which have thus far been seriously underestimated in this field,” Urquhart said. “We have been seeking to place Omega in a legitimately more upscale segment than that which it is generally perceived to occupy.”

Omega bid on more than a quarter of the 300 lots in the sale in April which attracted 48,500 people online, according to Osvaldo Patrizzi, the auctioneer.

The tactics have angered some horologists. Melvyn Teillol-Foo, a collector who bid online from Singapore and who bought several watches, said the company’s involvement was “heinous”.

Philippe Stern, head of the family-owned Patek Philippe, said his company had, over 40 years, bought about 1,300 Patek watches for its Geneva museum. But he said it was “preposterous” to suggest that it was doing this as a tactic to boost retail prices. “I bought the watches solely for the museum and none of these have been resold on the international market nor at auction,” Stern said.

“Although I am aware that some of our rare watches reach record prices at auction and contribute to our brand recognition . . . I cannot accept that auctions are just a stunt to bolster our retail prices. This is preposterous. The ‘retail price’ of Patek Philippe current collections is not affected by auction results.”

However, the strategy has proved spectacularly successful for the company. A 1953 rose gold Patek sold at Sotheby’s Geneva for 20,900 Swiss francs (£8,750 at current exchange rates) in 1984. In 2001 at Sotheby’s in New York the same watch sold for more than £735,000 at today’s rates.

Georges-Henri Meylan, chief executive of Audemars Piguet, another high-end manufacturer, said his company also bought back its own watches but not at any price. “We want to build a museum collection to use as a marketing tool but we don’t have a big budget to buy at any price so we don’t consider it inflationary,” he said.

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