Spending & Earning

Lennon’s Missing Patek Philippe Rightfully Belongs to Yoko Ono, Swiss Court Rules

  • Italian collector was seeking to secure rights to timepiece
  • Engraved watch was given to Lennon just months before he died
A Patek Philippe 2499 chronograph, of the same make as John Lennon’s watch.Photographer: Harold Cunningham/Getty Images
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Switzerland’s top court rejected an appeal by a luxury watch collector looking to claim ownership of a Patek Philippe watch given to John Lennon by his wife Yoko Ono shortly before his assassination in 1980.

The watch had been stolen by the Japanese artist’s former chauffeur and “there was no evidence to show that Yoko Ono intended to donate to the driver something as special as the watch, engraved with an inscription, that she had given to John Lennon two months before his death,” the Swiss Federal Court ruled in a decision released on Thursday.