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PSSSST! WANNA $5 MILLION WATCH?
By Rick Tetzeli

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Switzerland's Patek Philippe is hawking the most expensive watch ever made -- a $5 million pocket timepiece that took nine years to make. Weighing in at two pounds and finished in rose gold, the so-called Calibre '89 has a 126- jewel movement, a stopwatch, and 24 hands (one of which tracks the date of Easter through the year 2046), among other embellishments. It also has two faces. One is traditional. The other has a moving map of the heavens so the lucky owner can keep sidereal time. Another extra: The owner can set it to chime not only the hours but the minutes. And no tacky fluorescent hands for this turnip. To give Americans a glimpse of the watch, Patek is taking it to Omaha for an exhibition in April at Borsheim's Jewelers, owned since 1989 by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. Fellow travelers to the show include various antique timepieces from Patek's private collection. Among them: pocket watches owned by Queen Victoria, Albert Einstein, and Rudyard Kipling. Hank Edelman, VP of Patek's U.S. operations, insists that the goal of the exhibition isn't to sell the watch to the peripatetic Buffett. Not that the billionaire's time isn't becoming ever more squeezed. Besides trying to rescue Salomon from scandal and overseeing his investment empire, Buffett recently taped an appearance on ABC's All My Children, as a tycoon dispensing business advice. Also guest-starring in the same segment of the soap: Buffett's good buddy Thomas Murphy, chairman of Capital Cities/ABC. - R.T.