Designing a new Calatrava may be one of the most difficult tasks a watch designer can be given. As a benchmark model in the dress watch arena, anything less than perfect is unacceptable. The new Reference 6119 highlights the fact that the Calatrava is capable of both changing and remaining true to its roots as Martin Green explains here.
The Geneva Watch Auction: XIX held over the weekend by Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo, totaled 39,667,167, just a tad over its high estimate, and set five world records.
After years of thinking that a Nautilus wasn’t for him, in 2018 the Patek Philippe Reference 5740 was introduced and GaryG immediately asked for one. That started a four-year wait during which his gentle nudges were met by polite head shakes. And then . . .
To my longtime friends in the watch hobby, and perhaps to regular readers here as well, the mention of my name may conjure up a number of connotations: patron of the independents, fan of A. Lange & Söhne, admirer of Patek Philippe grand complications, and longtime customer of Jaeger-LeCoultre, among other characterizations more or less favorable. But vintage?
November 2018 marked a personal horological high point for GaryG as he took delivery of an “unobtainable” watch, the Patek Philippe Reference 3940P-027. Gary shares his reasons for buying this rare timepiece with us here.
Like a proper gentleman, Hollywood legend Clark Gable paired wristwatches to go with his outfits both on and off screen. Gable had a gold Rolex Oyster Perpetual Reference 6011 and also wore a Patek Philippe Reference 1526 Perpetual Calendar, prominently seen in ‘Soldier of Fortune’ as Nick Gould highlights here.
When GaryG recently took a good look at the current state of his watch collection, he was surprised by the large proportion of dark-dialed pieces in the mix. He has enjoyed – and photographed – each of three of these watches a great deal, but it isn’t until recently that he pulled them together in one place for side-by-side shooting and direct comparison. The results (and the watches) are simply stunning.
The rise of the internet, and the consequent evolution of the watch-watching community, has inevitably amplified the phenomenon whereby certain objects have come to exert an extraordinary hold over the collective imagination. Here, Colin Alexander Smith debunks three watch myths circulating widely and freely online and in print concerning former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s Rolex and Patek Philippe, the Khanjar Rolex Sea-Dwellers, and what in fact Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were wearing on their wrists as they summited Mount Everest.
The annual calendar is much more practical than a standard calendar, which needs correction in all months with 30 days or less; the annual calendar only needs correcting once a year in February. For owners of this noble yet practical complication, making this adjustment marks a yearly highlight. In celebration of the annual calendar, here are three exciting new models to kick off 2024 in style.
The Patek Philippe 5002 Sky Moon Tourbillon launched in platinum for the 2001 model year, the 12-complication featured two dials. Dial one was devoted to a moonphase indicator and a perpetual calendar with retrograde date display. On the sub-dial display for months, simple text promised a tourbillon regulator within the case.