"Esse quam videri" - "To be rather than to appear" (motto of the Graves family, commissioner of the Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication)Born in Milan in 1983, Marcello De Marco earned a Bachelor’s degree in Financial Market Economics from Bocconi University in 2005. He then began working for the family business – Coronet, a manufacturer of synthetic fabrics for footwear – and left Italy, settling first in Shanghai and then in HuiZhou, a town near the border with Hong Kong.
After four years, in 2009, a desire to experience a different environment prompted him to move from Asia to the United States. Mr De Marco first moved to New York and pursued a journalistic apprenticeship at the online newspaper I-Italy. He later worked between Florida and Turin for the U.S. branch of the Turin-based healthcare company Medestea.
His true calling, however, lies elsewhere. Passionate about timepieces from a very young age, Mr De Marco was lucky enough to grow up in Milan in the 1990s, one of the world’s hubs of vintage watch collecting. In the years to follow, the passion grows exponentially until – during the Christmas vacations of 2012 – Marcello decides to try to become a professional in the field, combining the useful with the enjoyable. It is, therefore, with relative ease that he comes into contact not only with watches but also with collectors and dealers.
The first experience consisted of four days as a viewing assistant at Christie’s auction in Geneva in May 2013, followed by an internship under Aurel Bacs (now an auctioneer and senior consultant at Phillips) that resulted in the position of specialist in January 2014. In 2017 he rejoined his mentor Bacs and began his adventure at Phillips in the role of specialist, watches – business development associate for Italy.
Genevan by adoption but Italian in the soul, apart from a passion for watches that borders on fanaticism, Mr De Marco is a lover of skiing and diving. His work leads him to divide his time between Geneva and Italy, making his base in his native Milan.
Distinguishing skills:
- Specialist in vintage Patek Philippe
- Market analysis and hypothesis of future trends
- Collection management
