Court Rules John Lennon’s Gifted Watch Belongs to Yoko Ono

Switzerland’s Supreme Court has ruled that Yoko Ono is the rightful owner of a watch she gifted John Lennon in 1980, two months before he was assassinated outside his home in New York City.

For his birthday that year, Ono had given her husband a very rare Patek Philippe 2499 watch. At the time, Ono paid around $25,000 at Tiffany — roughly $100,000 today. On the back of it was an inscription: “(JUST LIKE) STARTING OVER, LOVE YOKO. 10 • 9 • 1980. N. Y. C.”

Following Lennon’s death, Ono locked the watch away in the couple’s apartment, where it sat for several decades. In 2007, a one-time employee of Ono and Lennon’s named Koral Karsan was charged with grand larceny following Ono’s accusations that he blackmailed her. Karsan was sent back to his home country of Turkey, reportedly taking many valuable items from the home with him.

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Some of those items eventually turned up, but not the Patek Philippe 2499, which is estimated to be worth millions.

“He took advantage of a widow at a vulnerable time,” Sean Lennon told The New Yorker earlier this year. “Of all the incidents of people stealing things from my parents, this one is the most painful.”

The Court’s Ruling

In part thanks to reporting done by The New Yorker, the watch was eventually traced through multiple European auctions to the hands of an unidentified man who claimed that he bought the watch legally in 2014.

Despite this, Switzerland’s Supreme Court has now ruled that the watch belongs to Ono as it was originally taken from her illegally, stating that “there was no evidence to show that Yoko Ono intended to donate to the driver something as special as the watch.”